An Experimental mmWave Channel Model for UAV-to-UAV Communications

TL;DR

This paper presents an empirical 60 GHz UAV-to-UAV channel model based on extensive measurements, addressing the unique propagation characteristics caused by UAV micro-mobility and directional mmWave signals, which are not well-covered by existing models.

Contribution

It introduces a new empirical propagation loss model for UAV-to-UAV mmWave communications at 60 GHz, derived from real-world measurements and compares it with existing 3GPP models.

Findings

The model captures UAV-specific propagation characteristics.

Measurement dataset is made publicly available.

Comparison shows differences from 3GPP models.

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) networks can provide a resilient communication infrastructure to enhance terrestrial networks in case of traffic spikes or disaster scenarios. However, to be able to do so, they need to be based on high-bandwidth wireless technologies for both radio access and backhaul. With this respect, the millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum represents an enticing solution, since it provides large chunks of untapped spectrum that can enable ultra-high data-rates for aerial platforms. Aerial mmWave channels, however, experience characteristics that are significantly different from terrestrial deployments in the same frequency bands. As of today, mmWave aerial channels have not been extensively studied and modeled. Specifically, the combination of UAV micro-mobility (because of imprecisions in the control loop, and external factors including wind) and the highly directional mmWave transmissions require ad hoc models to accurately capture the performance of UAV deployments. To fill this gap, we propose an empirical propagation loss model for UAV-to-UAV communications at 60 GHz, based on an extensive aerial measurement campaign conducted with the Facebook Terragraph channel sounders. We compare it with 3GPP channel models and make the measurement dataset publicly available.