Three-Dimensional Non-Stationary Wideband Geometry-Based UAV Channel Model for A2G Communication Environments

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel three-dimensional multiple-input multiple-output channel model to describe the air-to-ground (A2G) communication environments. The model introduces the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) transmitter and ground mobile receiver (MR) located at the foci points of the boundary ellipsoid, while different ellipsoids represent the propagation properties for different time delays. In light of this, we are able to investigate the propagation properties of the A2G channel model for different time delays. Furthermore, the time-varying parameters of the azimuth angle of departure, the elevation angle of departure, the azimuth angle of arrival, and elevation angle of arrival are derived to properly describe the channel non-stationarity, which is caused by the motion of the UAV transmitter, cluster, and MR. The impacts of the movement properties of the cluster in both the azimuth and elevation planes are investigated on the channel characteristics, i.e., spatial cross-correlation functions, temporal autocorrelation functions, Doppler power spectrum density, and power delay profiles.