On the application of three dimensional HAP MIMO model in UAV environment

Abstract

The increasing availability of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) platforms leads to a variety of applications including surveillance, remote sensing, and traffic and crowd monitoring. Many of these applications rely on communication between the UAV and the ground receiver which is characterized by the presence of a Line-of-Sight (LOS) component most of the time that might lead to a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication capacity degradation. In order to design high throughput and efficient signal communication schemes for these emerging scenarios, a deep understanding of communication channel behavior is required. Based on the geometric similarity between High Altitude Platform (HAP) and UAV scenario, in this paper we analyze the application of a recently proposed three-dimensional (3D) reference MIMO channel model for HAP to UAV operation scenarios, showing the suitability of the model for lower altitude flights. A thorough capacity study of spatially and temporally correlated UAV-MIMO channels is presented. The results reveal design criteria for transmitter and receiver antenna arrays to achieve an almost constant capacity throughout the flight mission even in a non-uniform distribution of local scatterers.