Performance and Reliability Analysis of 4G-Based Flight Controllers in UAV Control

This study aims to analyze the performance and reliability of a UAV control system based on the Cube Orange flight controller using a 4G LTE network and the MAVLink protocol. The testing was conducted in two types of environments: urban and rural (Haurcucuk, West Bandung), with communication parameters measured including RSRP, throughput, latency, and handover success rate. Data were collected from flight logs and analyzed using Mission Planner and ArduPlot. The results indicate that the average throughput ranged between 18‒21 kbps, latency varied from 60 to 130 ms, and RSRP values ranged from −98 to −80 dBm. In the urban environment, handovers were successfully executed without connection interruptions. In contrast, in the rural area, although no handovers occurred, the system maintained stable MAVLink connectivity. These findings demonstrate that LTE networks can reliably support long-range UAV communication, provided that mission planning accounts for network coverage conditions.