Towards Connected Unmanned Aerial System: A Channel Modeling Perspective.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have attracted increasing interest in integrating them in next-generation wireless communication. It has reached a consensus that unmanned aerial system (UAS) plays an intensely crucial role in the emerging aerial networks. Concerning connected UAV, a multitude of communication scenarios are involved, such as intercommunications between UAVs and interactions with the ground user equipment (UE), the cellular base station (BS), and the ground station (GS), etc. In this article, we pour attention into the essentials of corresponding air-to-air (A2A) and air-to-ground (A2G) links in the above scenarios from the perspective of channel modeling. We first extract new characteristics related to UAV channel modeling, compared with traditional cellular and vehicular channels. We then provide a brief review of A2A and A2G channel statistics and models based on existing works. Following that, we show the impacts of the environment and frequency on A2G channel characterizations with the aid of measurements. Besides, we employ a realistic channel model to show how it influences communication performance. Finally, potential directions are discussed for paving the way to more accurate and effective UAV channel modeling.

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