Empirical Low-Altitude Air-to-Ground Spatial Channel Characterization for Cellular Networks Connectivity

Xuesong Cai; Tomasz Izydorczyk; Jose Rodriguez-Pineiro; Istvan Zsolt Kovacs; Jeroen Wigard; Fernando M.L. Tavares; Preben E. Mogensen

doi:10.1109/JSAC.2021.3088715

Empirical Low-Altitude Air-to-Ground Spatial Channel Characterization for Cellular Networks Connectivity

Xuesong Cai, Tomasz Izydorczyk, Jose Rodriguez-Pineiro, Istvan Zsolt Kovacs, Jeroen Wigard, Fernando M.L. Tavares, Preben E. Mogensen

Communications Engineering

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Abstract

Cellular-connected unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have recently attracted a surge of interest in both academia and industry. Understanding the air-to-ground (A2G) propagation channels is essential to enable reliable and/or high-throughput communications for UAVs and protect the ground user equipments (UEs). In this contribution, a recently conducted measurement campaign for the A2G channels is introduced. A uniform circular array (UCA) with 16 antenna elements was employed to collect the downlink signals of two different Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks, at the heights of 0-40m in three different, namely rural, urban and industrial scenarios. The channel impulse responses (CIRs) have been extracted from the received data, and the spatial, including angular, parameters of the multipath components in individual channels were estimated according to a high-resolution-parameter-estimation (HRPE) principle. Based on the HRPE results, clusters of multipath components were further identified. Finally, comprehensive spatial channel characteristics were investigated in the composite and cluster levels at different heights in the three scenarios.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	2975-2991
Number of pages	17
Journal	IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications
Volume	39
Issue number	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/JSAC.2021.3088715
Publication status	Published - 2021 Oct

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Manuscript received October 9, 2020; revised February 22, 2021; accepted April 11, 2021. Date of publication June 14, 2021; date of current version September 16, 2021. This work was supported in part by Nokia and in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant 61971313. (Corresponding author: Xuesong Cai.) Xuesong Cai was with the Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark. He is now with the Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark and also with the Department of Electrical and Information Technology, Lund University, 22100 Lund, Sweden (e-mail: [email protected]).

Publisher Copyright:
© 1983-2012 IEEE.

Subject classification (UKÄ)

Telecommunications
Communication Systems

Free keywords

air-to-ground
and clusters
angular characteristics
cellular networks
spatial channels
UAV

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10.1109/JSAC.2021.3088715

JSAC3088715Accepted author manuscript, 6.43 MB

Cite this

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title = "Empirical Low-Altitude Air-to-Ground Spatial Channel Characterization for Cellular Networks Connectivity",

abstract = "Cellular-connected unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have recently attracted a surge of interest in both academia and industry. Understanding the air-to-ground (A2G) propagation channels is essential to enable reliable and/or high-throughput communications for UAVs and protect the ground user equipments (UEs). In this contribution, a recently conducted measurement campaign for the A2G channels is introduced. A uniform circular array (UCA) with 16 antenna elements was employed to collect the downlink signals of two different Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks, at the heights of 0-40m in three different, namely rural, urban and industrial scenarios. The channel impulse responses (CIRs) have been extracted from the received data, and the spatial, including angular, parameters of the multipath components in individual channels were estimated according to a high-resolution-parameter-estimation (HRPE) principle. Based on the HRPE results, clusters of multipath components were further identified. Finally, comprehensive spatial channel characteristics were investigated in the composite and cluster levels at different heights in the three scenarios. ",

keywords = "air-to-ground, and clusters, angular characteristics, cellular networks, spatial channels, UAV",

author = "Xuesong Cai and Tomasz Izydorczyk and Jose Rodriguez-Pineiro and Kovacs, {Istvan Zsolt} and Jeroen Wigard and Tavares, {Fernando M.L.} and Mogensen, {Preben E.}",

note = "Funding Information: Manuscript received October 9, 2020; revised February 22, 2021; accepted April 11, 2021. Date of publication June 14, 2021; date of current version September 16, 2021. This work was supported in part by Nokia and in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant 61971313. (Corresponding author: Xuesong Cai.) Xuesong Cai was with the Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark. He is now with the Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark and also with the Department of Electrical and Information Technology, Lund University, 22100 Lund, Sweden (e-mail: [email protected]). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 1983-2012 IEEE.",

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AU - Kovacs, Istvan Zsolt

AU - Wigard, Jeroen

AU - Tavares, Fernando M.L.

AU - Mogensen, Preben E.

N1 - Funding Information: Manuscript received October 9, 2020; revised February 22, 2021; accepted April 11, 2021. Date of publication June 14, 2021; date of current version September 16, 2021. This work was supported in part by Nokia and in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant 61971313. (Corresponding author: Xuesong Cai.) Xuesong Cai was with the Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark. He is now with the Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark and also with the Department of Electrical and Information Technology, Lund University, 22100 Lund, Sweden (e-mail: [email protected]). Publisher Copyright: © 1983-2012 IEEE.

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N2 - Cellular-connected unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have recently attracted a surge of interest in both academia and industry. Understanding the air-to-ground (A2G) propagation channels is essential to enable reliable and/or high-throughput communications for UAVs and protect the ground user equipments (UEs). In this contribution, a recently conducted measurement campaign for the A2G channels is introduced. A uniform circular array (UCA) with 16 antenna elements was employed to collect the downlink signals of two different Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks, at the heights of 0-40m in three different, namely rural, urban and industrial scenarios. The channel impulse responses (CIRs) have been extracted from the received data, and the spatial, including angular, parameters of the multipath components in individual channels were estimated according to a high-resolution-parameter-estimation (HRPE) principle. Based on the HRPE results, clusters of multipath components were further identified. Finally, comprehensive spatial channel characteristics were investigated in the composite and cluster levels at different heights in the three scenarios.

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KW - and clusters

KW - angular characteristics

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ER -

Empirical Low-Altitude Air-to-Ground Spatial Channel Characterization for Cellular Networks Connectivity

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Subject classification (UKÄ)

Free keywords

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