Development and Experimental Evaluation of a Frequency-Hopping-Based Control and Telemetry System for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Under Radio-Electronic Warfare Conditions
Muxtar Azizullayev1* , Rashad Nematzade2 , Gunel Rzayeva3 ,
Turkan Muradova4 , Nuray Azizullayeva4
Abstract: This study examines a frequency hopping-based communication approach aimed at improving the reliability of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) telemetry systems under radio-electronic warfare conditions. Within the framework of the research, a flight controller based on the STM32 F405 microcontroller was designed in the EasyEDA environment, and two alternative telemetry communication configurations were implemented on the same hardware platform. In the first configuration, the NRF24L01 module was employed for communication in the 2.4 GHz band, whereas in the second configuration, the RFD868x module operating in the 868 MHz band was integrated and evaluated under identical test conditions. To enhance resistance against interference and channel blocking, a frequency hopping algorithm was developed and incorporated into the telemetry architecture. Experimental investigations were carried out at distances of 50 m, 100 m, 200 m, and 500 m in order to assess the communication performance of both configurations. During the tests, key transmission parameters, including RSSI, SNR, BER, latency, and Path Loss, were measured and interpreted together with the corresponding mathematical models. The results indicate that the proposed frequency hopping approach significantly increases telemetry channel resilience in the presence of radio-electronic interference. In addition, the comparative analysis confirms that communication stability depends not only on the hopping strategy itself, but also on the selected frequency band, telemetry module characteristics, and antenna configuration.
Keywords: unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), telemetry system, frequency hopping, FHSS, radio-electronic warfare, electromagnetic interference, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), received signal strength indicator (RSSI), bit error rate (BER), path loss, telemetry channel, communication reliability, flight controller, anti-jamming communication, wireless telemetry