UAV Satellite Communication Market Trends

Growth Drivers

• Increasing use of UAV satellite communication systems in the agriculture sector: UAV SATCOM systems, provide real-time data transmission even in remote parts, which is important for several agricultural applications. UAVs are used widely for precision farming to inspect soil health, monitor crops, and enhance irrigation systems. These UAVs frequently function over large expanses of land, necessitating uninterrupted communication to transmit data back to farmers or control centers. Satellite communication plays a critical role here, letting UAVs relay high-quality images and sensor data from rural or remote areas where traditional communication infrastructure is inadequate.
  
  Farm owners across the globe are steadily adopting UAV SATCOM systems for more precise and appropriate data collection, refining crop yields, and resource management. According to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, UAVs or drones will add approximately USD 7 billion annually to the global economy. Nearly 84% of the farmers in the US use drones daily or weekly, about 73% use them for crop monitoring and 43% use them for field and soil examination.

• Rising investment in 5G and satellite convergence: Telecommunication companies and satellite service providers work in partnership to create hybrid networks that influence the strengths of both terrestrial 5G and satellite systems.  For instance, companies such as AT&T and Verizon are capitalizing on 5G infrastructure and exploring partnerships with satellite operators such as Iridium and SES. This partnership allows UAVs to seamlessly transition between ground-based 5G networks and satellite communications, safeguarding continuous connectivity even in remote or rural zones with deficient robust terrestrial infrastructure. The rising investment in 5G and the convergence of satellite communications are driving the UAV satellite communication market by connectivity, refining operational efficiencies, and enabling new applications.

Challenges:                                          

• Supervisory and compliance problems: Satellite communications and UAVs are governed by an intricate web of rules that vary from country to country, generating hurdles for operators trying to deploy UAVs across borders or in controlled spaces. In particular, limitations related to beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations and occurrence spectrum allocation for satellite communication bound the growth of the UAV satellite communication market.
  
  In 2023, the ITU raised concerns about the growing demand for satellite bandwidth for UAVs, cautioning that the allocation of frequencies for UAV SATCOM would need careful supervision to avoid service interruptions. Throughout the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-23), this discussion was focused on safeguarding the UAV communication systems, mainly those that rely on satellite links, that can coexist with additional critical services using a similar spectrum. Mismanagement could lead to signal interference, affecting UAV operations and additional satellite-based systems.

• Bandwidth and latency limitations: The availability of bandwidth for satellite communication is finite, this limits the volume of data that UAVs can transmit in real-time. With the increasing demand for applications such as agriculture, environmental monitoring, and surveillance this restricted bandwidth is becoming a bottleneck. Existing communication systems struggle to handle the rising data traffic, mainly as UAVs are deployed for high-resolution imagining and video streaming which need substantial data transfer capacity.