A Non-Stationary Channel Model for 6G Multi-UAV Cooperative Communication

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel three-dimensional (3D) non-stationary multiple-unmanned aerial vehicle (multi-UAV) cooperative channel model for sixth generation (6G) wireless communication systems. In the proposed multi-UAV cooperative channel model, the channel impulse response (CIR) of sub-channel between each UAV and ground station (GS) is calculated, including line-of-sight (LoS), non-LoS (NLoS), as well as ground reflection transmissions. The relative distance and transmission relationship among sub-channels between multi-UAVs and GS are further modeled and analyzed. To simultaneously capture the cooperative non-stationarity of multi-UAV cooperative channels in space and time domains, a novel cooperation-based space-time (S-T) non-stationary algorithm is developed based on the birth-death (BD) process for the first time. Meanwhile, the UAV-related parameters, e.g., the height and 3D movement of UAVs, are considered. Some important channel statistical properties, such as space-time-frequency correlation function (STF-CF), Doppler power spectral density (DPSD), cooperative time stationary interval, and singular value spread (SVS), are obtained. Based on the simulation results, multi-UAV cooperative channel statistical properties are analyzed. Finally, the simulation results match well with the ray-tracing results, which validates the accuracy of the proposed multi-UAV channel model.