Performance analysis of UAV-based mixed underwater PLC-RF systems

In this study, we analyzed the performance of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-based mixed Underwater Power Line Communication-Radio Frequency (UPLC-RF) network. In this network, a buoy located at the sea is used as a relay to transmit signals from the underwater signal source to the UAV through the PLC link. We assume that the UPLC channel obeys a log-normal distribution and that the RF link follows the Rician distribution. Using this model, we obtained the closed-form expressions for the Outage Probability (OP), Average Bit-error-rate (ABER), and Average Channel Capacity (ACC). In addition, the asymptotic analysis of the OP and ABER was performed, and an upper bound for the average capacity was obtained. Finally, the analytical results were verified by Monte Carlo simulation thereby demonstrating the effect of impulse noise and the altitude of the UAV on network performance.