Channel Prediction for mmWave Ground-to-Air Propagation under Blockage

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method for predicting mmWave ground-to-air channel characteristics during link blockages using path binning and autoregressive forecasting, validated through ray tracing simulations.

Contribution

The work presents a new approach to forecast MPCs during blockages by organizing them into path bins and applying autoregressive models, improving channel prediction accuracy.

Findings

Predicted channel parameters closely match actual values.

Ray tracing simulations validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

The approach enhances reliability of UAV communication links during blockages.

Abstract

Ground-to-air (GA) communication using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has gained popularity in recent years and is expected to be part of 5G networks and beyond. However, the GA links are susceptible to frequent blockages at millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies. During a link blockage, the channel information cannot be obtained reliably. In this work, we provide a novel method of channel prediction during the GA link blockage at 28 GHz. In our approach, the multipath components (MPCs) along a UAV flight trajectory are arranged into independent path bins based on the minimum Euclidean distance among the channel parameters of the MPCs. After the arrangement, the channel parameters of the MPCs in individual path bins are forecasted during the blockage. An autoregressive model is used for forecasting. The results obtained from ray tracing simulations indicate a close match between the actual and the predicted mmWave channel.