Abstract
The integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into precision agriculture, as envisioned in the agricultural systems, promises significant gains in crop monitoring, yield forecasting, and targeted agro-technical interventions. However, the use of IMT frequency bands for real-time UAV communications introduces new spectrum sharing and compatibility challenges. Unlike terrestrial user equipment, airborne agricultural drones operate always outdoors, above the base-station downtilt, with predominantly line-of-sight (LoS) propagation to multiple cells, drastically altering compatibility conditions and potentially increasing interference to other operators. This paper proposes a Monte Carlo-based simulation framework analysis of interference generated by such UAVs in IMT frequency allocations across 694–2690 MHz. Simulations model rural and urban macrocell deployments typical of large-scale farmlands, incorporating 3D antenna patterns, altitude-dependent air-to-ground channel models, realistic LTE/NR power-control schemes, and UAV operational patterns. Key metrics include aggregate uplink interference at victim cells, downlink degradation at UAVs, and cross-link interference in TDD systems. Results show that even low-power UAV transmissions can exceed harmful interference thresholds in multiple adjacent-channel cells. Operational recommendations are provided to ensure coexistence of precision-agriculture UAVs with terrestrial IMT networks.