Investigation of Air-to-Air Channel Characteristics and a UAV Specific Extension to the Rice Model

A Survey of Channel Modeling for UAV Communications

“…In the literature, this case is appropriate for the high altitude platform in [13]- [15], [26], [29], [39] and for the scattered multipath environments in the low altitude platform in [45], [46], [57]. For the Rician channel, the Rician K factor is a quantitative parameter to measure the severity of the multipath fading.…”

“…In [57], the impact of the UAV altitude on AA propagation was investigated for large-scale variations and small-scale fading distribution. In this study, path loss was determined by the Friis equation with a PLE of 2.6 and a fading channel distribution that fits with the height-dependent Rician factor K. In [59], a log-distance model was used to analyze the path loss for vertical and horizontal distances.…”

“…Aerial link characterization has been conducted in [57] and [59] using a IEEE 802.11 radio. In [57], the impact of the UAV altitude on AA propagation was investigated for large-scale variations and small-scale fading distribution.…”

“…In [57], the measurement campaign was performed in the laboratory and outdoor environments to study, in particular, the altitude-dependent multipath propagation in the AA channel. The measurements were collected with 802.11 a/b/g/n WLAN devices from two different vendors and deployed in three outdoor scenarios using a hexacopter UAV.…”

“…Moreover, the propagation characteristics of AA channels are similar to that in free space and largely dependent on strong LOS conditions and ground reflection effects. In the literature, the AA propagation channel has been empirically characterized using low power radios based on the IEEE 802.15.4 [54]- [56] and IEEE 802.11 standards [57], [59]. But these studies only reported large-scale fading statistics, while the impact of antenna orientation and the Doppler spectrum of the AA channel are largely unstudied.…”