The paper presents a long range data acquisition chain operating in areas without access to the electricity grid or communication infrastructure built with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). It is assumed that the length of the network chain significantly exceeds the flight range of a single drone. To build such a network three basic problems have to be solved. The first is energy harvesting for battery charging. The second concerns the choice of drone models that can cover a given distance in the shortest time. The third problem is the reduction of the flight range of drones as a function of payload mass. The evaluation of the proposed method is based on the results of simulations and cost analysis of 54 drones and 25 solar cells. The analysis ends with a proposition of seven steps that can help to choose the most suitable drone model for a given task.
Keywords: agriculture; data acquisition; distributed measurement network; energy harvesting; environment monitoring; network chain; photovoltaic cell; radio relay network; renewable energy; routing protocols; sensors; solar energy; unmanned aerial vehicles; wireless sensor network.