Design Optimization for UAV Aided Sustainable 3D Wireless Communication at mmWaves

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Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operating at different altitudes will be integral to the 5th generation and beyond (5G+) communication network to provide ubiquitous coverage. Though 5G+ communications target to operate in sub-6 GHz as well as millimeter wave range (mmWaves), sub-6 GHz being already congested, mmWaves are seen as a viable technology that can support high data rates. To this end, in this paper, we study the feasibility of using UAVs at mmWaves deployed at low altitudes to serve a user population higher than the number of RF chains available at the UAV. Since the UAVs are energy constrained devices, solar harvesting is considered for the UAVs to act as access nodes for an extended period of time. Practical 3-dimensional antenna array radiation pattern and the resulting inter-beam interference from the sidelobes are taken into account in the analysis. We devise a sub-array hybrid precoder that provides minimum rate support to all users across the wideband mmWave channel. The RF precoder is designed according to the users' locations. In addition, we propose a low complexity iterative joint subcarrier allocation and baseband precoder optimization algorithm with faster convergence. In the proposed algorithm, we employ weighted minimum mean squared error (WMMSE) to design baseband precoder to reduce inter-beam interference while jointly optimizing subcarrier allocation to maintain minimum user rate constraint. Next, we determine the optimal number of beams at UAV to optimize throughput while guaranteeing minimum user rate support for energy sustainable UAV operation. Finally, we compare the performance gain achieved by low-altitude UAV deployed at mmWaves over the UAV deployed at sub-6 GHz frequency range.