Towards Designing Systems with Large Number of Antennas for Range Extension in Ground-to-Air Communications

TL;DR

This paper proposes a mathematical framework to extend the range of ground-to-air communications using large antenna arrays, modeling SNR as a function of antennas and range, enabling analytical design for various scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analytical model linking antenna count and range in ground-to-air systems, addressing a key challenge in broadband airborne connectivity.

Findings

Derived expressions for antenna requirements to achieve range extension.

Analyzed impact of frequency bands and tracking scenarios on system design.

Provided guidelines for system deployment to enhance coverage.

Abstract

Providing broadband connectivity to airborne systems using ground based cellular networks is a promising solution as it offers several advantages over satellite-based solutions. However, limited range of terrestrial base stations is a key challenge in full realization of this approach. This paper addresses this problem by proposing a mathematical framework for range extension leveraging large number of antennas at the base station. In contrast to prior works where range is not considered as a design parameter, we model the signal to noise ratio as a function of both number of antennas as well as the range in line-of-sight ground-to-air systems. This allows us to derive analytical expressions to determine the number of antennas required to increase range in different frequency bands and tracking and non tracking scenarios.