UAVs for Wi-Fi Receiver Mapping and Packet Sniffing with Antenna Radiation Pattern Diversity

The paper introduces an innovative way of exploiting aerial robotics or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in the communication field which adds up a wider angle of applications to the already vast use of this new technology. Since IEEE 802 Wi-Fi technology is popular and widely used nowadays (in smartphones, laptops, access points, smart TVs etc.), performance reducing interference caused by having any two or more close-by 2.4 GHz networks on the same channel can occur especially in highly dense populated urban areas. We design an aerial robot (UAV) with a powerful Wi-Fi receiver along with high gain antennas and some other equipment enabling it to operate as a so called Passive sniffer, listening to all Wi-Fi traffic in range and extracting network information along with GPS coordinates and illustrate the results on Geographical maps using Wi-Fi Triangulation Techniques. Having such capabilities on an autonomous aerial robot enables geographical packet analysis and the observation of widespread traffic, plus the ability to analyse and graph the areas with coverage and locate the highly crowded areas with higher interference. Therefore finding solutions to mitigate this undesirable performance degrading interference.