A Survey of Air-to-Ground Propagation Channel Modeling for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Khawaja, Wahab; Güvenç, İsmail; Matolak, David W.; Fiebig, U.-C.; Schneckenburger, Nicolas

doi:10.1109/comst.2019.2915069

Cited by 571 publications

(243 citation statements)

References 105 publications

(288 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

237

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The exciting new opportunities in a broad range of UAV applications have spawned extensive research recently. In particular, several magazine [12,13,20]- [23] and survey [11,24]- [34] papers on wireless communications and networks with UAVs have appeared. Among them, the survey papers [24]- [26] focus on air-ground channel models and experimental measurement results of UAV communications.…”

Section: E Prior Work and Our Contributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accessing From the Sky: A Tutorial on UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have found numerous applications and are expected to bring fertile business opportunities in the next decade. Among various enabling technologies for UAVs, wireless communication is essential and has drawn significantly growing attention in recent years. Compared to the conventional terrestrial communications, UAVs' communications face new challenges due to their high altitude above the ground and great flexibility of movement in the threedimensional (3D) space. Several critical issues arise, including the line-of-sight (LoS) dominant UAV-ground channels and resultant strong aerial-terrestrial network interference, the distinct communication quality of service (QoS) requirements for UAV control messages versus payload data, the stringent constraints imposed by the size, weight and power (SWAP) limitations of UAVs, as well as the exploitation of the new design degree of freedom (DoF) brought by the highly controllable 3D UAV mobility. In this paper, we give a tutorial overview of the recent advances in UAV communications to address the above issues, with an emphasis on how to integrate UAVs into the forthcoming fifth-generation (5G) and future cellular networks. In particular, we partition our discussions into two promising research and application frameworks of UAV communications, namely UAVassisted wireless communications and cellular-connected UAVs, where UAVs serve as aerial communication platforms and users, respectively. Furthermore, we point out promising directions for future research and investigation. KeywordsUnmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), wireless communication, cellular network, channel model, antenna model, energy efficiency, air-ground interference, 3D placement and trajectory, optimization. TechnologyDescription Advantages Disadvantages Direct linkDirect point-to-point communication with ground node Simple, low cost Limited range, low data rate, vulnerable to interference, non-scalable Satellite Communication and Internet access via satellite Global coverage Costly, heavy/bulky/energyconsuming communication equipment, high latency, large signal attenuation Ad-hoc network Dynamically self-organizing and infrastructure-free network Robust and adaptable, support for high mobility Costly, low spectrum efficiency, intermittent connectivity, complex routing protocol Cellular network Enabling UAV communications by using cellular infrastructure and technologies Almost ubiquitous accessibility, cost-effective, superior performance and scalability Unavailable in remote areas, potential interference with terrestrial communications and high reliability/throughput for both air-to-air and airto-ground wireless communications in the three-dimensional (3D) space. Towards this end, four candidate communication technologies are listed and compared in Table III, including i) direct link; ii) satellite; iii) ad-hoc network; and iv) cellular network. In the following, we discuss the advantages as well as limitations of each of these technologies in detail.1) Direct Link: Due to its simpli...

show abstract

Section: E Prior Work and Our Contributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accessing From the Sky: A Tutorial on UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Channel modeling must be studied for designing and evaluating proper UAV data links for different applications. There have been several research work and surveys on channel modeling for UAV communications, such as [15][16][17][18]. For instance, a comprehensive survey on channel modeling for UAV communications is provided in [15].…”

Section: ) Channel Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications System (AeroMACS) is based on WiMAX standard, IEEE 802. 16. This standard is defined for the physical layer and the MAC layer of the ground-to-aircraft and aircraft-to-aircraft communications at airports [125].…”

Section: A Aeromacsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential Data Link Candidates for Civilian Unmanned Aircraft Systems: A Survey

Zolanvari

Jain

Salman

2020

IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutorials

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This survey studies the potential data link candidates for unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAVs). There has been tremendous growth in different applications of UAVs such as lifesaving and rescue missions, commercial use, recreations, etc. Unlike the traditional wireless communications, the data links for these systems do not have any general standardized framework yet to ensure safe co-existence of UAVs with other flying vehicles. This motivated us to provide a comprehensive survey of potential data link technologies available for UAVs. Our goal is to study the current trends and available candidates and carry out a comprehensive comparison among them. The contribution of this survey is to highlight the strength and weakness of the current data link options and their suitability to satisfy the UAVs communication requirements. Satellite links, cellular technologies, Wi-Fi and several similar wireless technologies are studied thoroughly in this paper. We also focus on several available promising standards that can be modified for these data links. Then, we discuss standard-related organizations that are working actively in the area of civilian unmanned systems. Finally, we bring up some future challenges in this area with several potential solutions to motivate further research work. Index Terms-Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV), civilian applications, data link, satellite communication, cellular communication, aviation standards, standard bodies, future challenges. SATCOM Provider ATC Pilot Cellular Provider Satellite UAV Cellular Tower Fig. 1 2 2) Network RequirementsThere are several survey papers discussing the requirements for UAS data link such as [2], and [9][10][11][12][13][14]. For example, the requirements for the UASs based on four different areas of missions, communication networks, communication data links, navigation, and surveillance are discussed in [2]. Several detailed discussions about the communication data link requirements such as range, velocity, latency, reliability, availability, integrity, security, and bit rate are provided. As another instance, a survey of UAVs communication requirements has been studied in [9]. These requirements are based on four categories of UAV applications (i.e., search and rescue, area coverage, delivery/transportation, and construction). Moreover, the important requirements and considerations regarding the network layer of UAV communications have been discussed in [14]. 3) Channel ModelingChannel modeling must be studied for designing and evaluating proper UAV data links for different applications. There have been several research work and surveys on channel modeling for UAV communications, such as [15][16][17][18]. For instance, a comprehensive survey on channel modeling for UAV communications is provided in [15]. Different channel modeling approaches along with the associated challenges have been studied. 4) Our ContributionWe have studied the existing survey papers on the aforementioned issues related to the UAV data links. In this s...

show abstract

“…This means the average channel fading gain of the A2A channel is smaller than that of the A2G channel, which is not true in reality. On the other hand, the proposed Rician factor model in (5) is changed according to the respective heights of the receiver and the transmitter as shown in Fig. 2.…”

Section: B Channel Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology develops, reliable UAV communications have become necessary. However, since UAV communications are different from conventional terrestrial communications, it is hard to apply the technologies used in terrestrial communications to UAV communications [2]- [5]. Especially, unlike terrestrial communications, UAV communications can have line-of-sight (LoS) environments between a UAV and a ground device, and between UAVs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of an Interfering Node on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Communications

Kim

Lee

2019

IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Unlike terrestrial communications, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications have some advantages such as the line-of-sight (LoS) environment and flexible mobility. However, the interference will be still inevitable. In this paper, we analyze the effect of an interfering node on the UAV communications by considering the LoS probability and different channel fading for LoS and non-line-of-sight (NLoS) links, which are affected by horizontal and vertical distances of the communication link. We then derive a closed-form outage probability in the presence of an interfering node for all the possible scenarios and environments of main and interference links. After discussing the impacts of transmitting and interfering node parameters on the outage probability, we show the existence of the optimal height of the UAV that minimizes the outage probability. We also show the NLoS environment can be better than the LoS environment if the average received power of the interference is more dominant than that of the transmitting signal on UAV communications. Finally, we analyze the network outage probability for the case of multiple interfering nodes using stochastic geometry and the outage probability of the single interfering node case, and show the effect of the interfering node density on the optimal height of the UAV. Index Terms-Unmanned aerial vehicle, interfering node, airto-air channel, line-of-sight probability, outage probability P m , β I (ℓ I ) = ℓ −αI(ℓI) I P I .(2) 1 Note that the result of this paper can be readily extended for the multiple interfering nodes case as presented in Section IV. However, the analysis results will be complicated and give fewer insights. In addition, the communication performance is generally determined by one critical interfering node, especially in low outage probability region [36]. Therefore, we focus on the one interfering node case in this work, but the performance for the multiple interfering nodes case is also presented in simulation results of Section V.

show abstract

A Survey of Air-to-Ground Propagation Channel Modeling for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Cited by 571 publications

References 105 publications

Accessing From the Sky: A Tutorial on UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond

Accessing From the Sky: A Tutorial on UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond

Potential Data Link Candidates for Civilian Unmanned Aircraft Systems: A Survey

Impact of an Interfering Node on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Communications

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About