In this paper, a novel framework is proposed to perform data-driven air-to-ground (A2G) channel estimation for millimeter wave (mmWave) communications in an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) wireless network. First, an effective channel estimation approach is developed to collect mmWave channel information, allowing each UAV to train a stand-alone channel model via a conditional generative adversarial network (CGAN) along each beamforming direction. Next, in order to expand the application scenarios of the trained channel model into a broader spatial-temporal domain, a cooperative framework, based on a distributed CGAN architecture, is developed, allowing each UAV to collaboratively learn the mmWave channel distribution in a fully-distributed manner. To guarantee an efficient learning process, necessary and sufficient conditions for the optimal UAV network topology that maximizes the learning rate for cooperative channel modeling are derived, and the optimal CGAN learning solution per UAV is subsequently characterized, based on the distributed network structure. Simulation results show that the proposed distributed CGAN approach is robust to the local training error at each UAV. Meanwhile, a larger airborne network size requires more communication resources per UAV to guarantee an efficient learning rate. The results also show that, compared with a stand-alone CGAN without information sharing and two other distributed schemes, namely: A multi-discriminator CGAN and a federated CGAN method, the proposed distributed CGAN approach yields a higher modeling accuracy while learning the environment, and it achieves a larger average data rate in the online performance of UAV downlink mmWave communications.
To support high data rate urgent or ad hoc communications, we consider mmWave UAV cellular networks and the associated challenges and solutions. To enable fast beamforming training and tracking, we first investigate a hierarchical structure of beamforming codebooks and design of hierarchical codebooks with different beam widths via the sub-array techniques. We next examine the Doppler effect as a result of UAV movement and find that the Doppler effect may not be catastrophic when high gain directional transmission is used. We further explore the use of millimeter wave spatial division multiple…
To exploit richer spectrum resources for even better service quality, millimeter wave (mmWave) communication has been considered for high-speed railway (HSR) communication systems. In this paper, we focus on scheduling as many flows as possible while satisfying their QoS requirements. Due to interference, eavesdropping, or other problems, some flows may not be directly transmitted from the track-side BS. In this paper, we propose an UAV-assisted scheduling scheme which utilizes a UAV to serve as relay for such flows. The proposed scheme also utilize two mmWave bands, one for the BS links and t…
Jittering effects significantly degrade the performance of UAV millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications. To investigate the impacts of UAV jitter on mmWave communications, we firstly model UAV mmWave channel based on the geometric relationship between element antennas of the uniform planar arrays (UPAs). Then, we extract the relationship between (I) UAV attitude angles & position coordinates and (II) angle of arrival (AoA) & angle of departure (AoD) of mmWave channel, and we also derive the distribution of AoA/AoD at UAV side from the random fluctuations of UAV attitude angles, i.e., UAV jitter…
Path loss is a significant component of wireless communication channel design and analysis and reflects the reduction in a transmitted signal's power density. Due to the differences in the propagation conditions, wireless aerial channels' features differ from those of terrestrial wireless channels; therefore, unmanned aerial vehicle path loss models are often different from conventional terrestrial wireless channel path loss models. A mathematical propagation model is proposed in this paper to estimate the Ground-to-Air path loss between a wireless device and a low-altitude platform using the …
In this paper, a novel approach that uses an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-carried intelligent reflector (IR) is proposed to enhance the performance of millimeter wave (mmW) networks. In particular, the UAV-IR is used to intelligently reflect mmW beamforming signals from a base station towards a mobile outdoor user, while harvesting energy from mmW signals to power the IR. To maintain a line-of-sight (LOS) channel, a reinforcement learning (RL) approach, based on Q-learning and neural networks, is proposed to model the propagation environment, such that the location and reflection coefficient …
An urban tactical wireless network is considered wherein the base stations are situated on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that provide connectivity to ground assets such as vehicles located on city streets. The UAVs are assumed to be randomly deployed at a fixed height according to a two-dimensional point process. Millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies are used to avail of large available bandwidths and spatial isolation due to beamforming. In urban environments, mmWave signals are prone to blocking of the line-of-sight (LoS) by buildings. While reflections are possible, the desire for consiste…
With the explosive growth of mobile data, the demand of high-speed railway (HSR) passengers for broadband wireless access services urgently needs the support of ultra-highspeed scenario broadband wireless communication. Millimeterwave (mmWave) can achieve high data transmission rates, but it is accompanied by high propagation loss and vulnerability to blockage. To address this issue, developments of directional antennas and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) enhance the robustness of the mmWave train-ground communication system. In this paper, we propose a UAV and MRs relay assistance (UMRA) algo…
Univeristy of Illinois at Urbana Champaign（伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校）
Recent years have witnessed much interest in expanding the use of networking signals beyond communication to sensing, localization, robotics, and autonomous systems. This paper explores how we can leverage recent advances in 5G millimeter wave (mmWave) technology for imaging in self-driving cars. Specifically, the use of mmWave in 5G has led to the creation of compact phased arrays with hundreds of antenna elements that can be electronically steered. Such phased arrays can expand the use of mmWave beyond vehicular communications and simple ranging sensors to a full-fledged imaging system that …
The millimeter-wave (mm-wave) bands enable very large antenna arrays that can generate narrow beams for beamforming and spatial multiplexing. However, directionality introduces beam misalignment and leads to reduced energy efficiency. Thus, employing the narrowest possible beam in a cell may not necessarily imply maximum coverage. The objective of this work is to determine the optimal sector beamwidth for a cellular architecture served by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) acting as a base station (BS). The users in a cell are assumed to be distributed according to a Poisson Point Process (PPP) …
Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) with the ability to reconfigure inherent electromagnetic reflection and absorption characteristics in real-time provide unparalleled prospects to improve wireless connectivity in adverse circumstances. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)-assisted wireless networks are evolved as a reliable solution to combat non-line of sight (NLoS) scenarios. Thereby, the IRS-empowered UAV-assisted cellular networks will be a significant role-player to improve the coverage and user experiences. The paper aimed to minimize the path loss and maximize the achievable data rate in…
The integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into the terrestrial cellular networks is envisioned as one key technology for next-generation wireless communications. In this work, we consider the physical layer security of the communications links in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum which are maintained by UAVs functioning as base stations (BS). In particular, we propose a new precoding strategy which incorporates the channel state information (CSI) of the eavesdropper (Eve) compromising link security. We show that our proposed precoder strategy eliminates any need for artificial noi…
Fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are of great potential to serve as aerial access points (APs) owing to better aerodynamic performance and longer flight endurance. However, the inherent hovering feature of fixed-wing UAVs may result in discontinuity of connections and frequent handover of ground users (GUs). In this work, we model and evaluate the performance of a fixed-wing UAV network, where UAV APs provide coverage to GUs with millimeter wave backhaul. Firstly, it reveals that network spatial throughput (ST) is independent of the hover radius under real-time closest-UAV associatio…
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are powerful Internet-of-Things components to provide sensing and communications in the air due to their advantages in mobility and flexibility. As aerial users, UAVs are envisioned to support various sensing applications in the next generation cellular systems, which have been studied by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). However, the Quality-of-Services (QoS) of the cellular link between the UAV and the base station may not be guaranteed when UAVs are at the cell edge or experiencing deep fading. In this article, we first introduce the non-cooper…
In this paper, a novel framework is proposed to enable air-to-ground channel modeling over millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies in an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) wireless network. First, an effective channel estimation approach is developed to collect mmWave channel information allowing each UAV to train a local channel model via a generative adversarial network (GAN). Next, in order to share the channel information between UAVs in a privacy-preserving manner, a cooperative framework, based on a distributed GAN architecture, is developed to enable each UAV to learn the mmWave channel distrib…
This paper aims to exploit the fundamental limits on the downlink coverage and spatial throughput performances of a cellular network comprised of a tier of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) base stations (BSs) using the millimeter wave (mmWave) band and a tier of ground BSs using the ultra high frequency (UHF) band. To reduce handover signaling overhead, the ground BSs take charge of control signaling delivery whereas the UAVs are in charge of payload data transmission so that users need to be simultaneously associated with a ground BS and a UAV in this network with a control-data plane-split arch…
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) wireless communications have experienced an upsurge of interest in both military and civilian applications, due to its high mobility, low cost, on-demand deployment, and inherent line-of-sight (LoS) air-to-ground channels. However, these benefits also make UAV wireless communication systems vulnerable to malicious eavesdropping attacks. In this article, we aim to examine the physical layer security issues in UAV systems. In particular, passive and active eavesdroppings are two primary attacks in UAV systems. We provide an overview on emerging techniques, such as t…
In this paper, a novel communication framework that uses an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-carried intelligent reflector (IR) is proposed to enhance multi-user downlink transmissions over millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies. In order to maximize the downlink sum-rate, the optimal precoding matrix (at the base station) and reflection coefficient (at the IR) are jointly derived. Next, to address the uncertainty of mmWave channels and maintain line-of-sight links in a real-time manner, a distributional reinforcement learning approach, based on quantile regression optimization, is proposed to lear…
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have steadily gained attention to overcome the harsh propagation loss and blockage issue of millimeter-wave communication. However, UAV communication systems suffer from energy consumption, which limits the flying time of UAVs. In this paper, we propose several UAV energy consumption minimization techniques through the aid of multiple intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs). In specific, we introduce a tractable model to effectively capture the characteristics of multiple IRSs and multiple user equipments (UEs). Then, we derive a closed form expression for the UE…
For unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) aided millimeter wave (mmWave) networks, we propose a unified three-dimensional (3D) spatial framework in this paper to model a general case that uncovered users send messages to base stations via UAVs. More specifically, the locations of transceivers in downlink and uplink are modeled through the Poisson point processes and Poisson cluster processes (PCPs), respectively. For PCPs, Matern cluster and Thomas cluster processes, are analyzed. Furthermore, both 3D blockage processes and 3D antenna patterns are introduced for appraising the effect of altitudes. Bas…
GPS-Aided Deep Learning for Beam Prediction and Tracking in UAV mmWave Communication
Department of Intelligent Mechatronics Engineering, and Department of Convergence Engineering for Intelligent Drone, Sejong University（智能机电工程系，智能无人机融合工程系，世宗大学）
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) base stations (BSs) can be a promising solution to provide connectivity and quality of service (QoS) guarantees during temporary events and after disasters. In this paper, we consider a scenario where UAV-BSs are serving large number of mobile users in a hot spot area (e.g., in a stadium). We introduce non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) transmission at UAV-BSs to serve more users simultaneously considering user distances as the available feedback for user ordering during NOMA formulation. With millimeter-wave (mmWave) transmission and multi-antenna techniques, …
To meet increasing data demands, service providers are considering the use of Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for delivering connectivity as aerial base stations (BSs). UAVs are especially important to provide connectivity in case of disasters and accidents which may cripple completely the existing terrestrial networks. However, in order to maintain the communication of UAVs with the core network, it is essential to provide them with wireless backhaul connection to terrestrial BSs. In this work, we use stochastic geometry to study the impact of millimeter-wave (mmWave) backhauling of UAVs in a…
University of Bologna（博洛尼亚大学）；VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd（芬兰国家技术研究中心）
A measurement setup made of millimeter-wave and ultra wideband transceivers mounted on both a customized UAV and a ground station for full 3D wireless propagation analysis is described in this work. The developed system represents a flexible solution for the characterization of wireless channels and especially of urban propagation, as the drone might be easily located almost anywhere from ground level to the buildings rooftop and beyond. The double directional properties of the channel can be achieved by rotating directive antennas at the link ends. Other possible applications in urban context…
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have brought a lot of flexibility in the network deployment. However, UAVs suffer from the high mobility and instability. To improve the capacity and reliability of the UAV networks, millimeter-wave (mmWave) and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) can be used in the system. In this paper, we consider an RIS-assisted mmWave UAV wireless cellular network, where UAVs serve several users with the help of multiple RISs. We jointly optimize the deployment, user scheduling, beamforming vector, and RIS phases to maximize the sum-rate, with the constraints of the …
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as aerial base stations, are a promising solution for providing wireless communications, thanks to their high flexibility and autonomy. Moreover, emerging services, such as extended reality, require high-capacity communications. To achieve this, millimeter wave (mmWave), and recently, terahertz bands have been considered for UAV communications. However, communication at these high frequencies requires a line-of-sight (LoS) to the terminals, which may be located in 3D space and may have extremely limited direct-line-of-view (LoV) due to blocking objects, like bu…
Service providers are considering the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to enhance wireless connectivity of cellular networks. To provide connectivity, UAVs have to be backhauled through terrestrial base stations (BSs) to the core network. In particular, we consider millimeter-wave (mmWave) backhauling in the downlink of a hybrid aerial-terrestrial network, where the backhaul links are subject to beamforming misalignment errors. In the proposed model, the user equipment (UE) can connect to either a ground BS or a UAV, where we differentiate between two transmission schemes according to th…
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be deployed as aerial base stations (BSs) for rapid establishment of communication networks during temporary events and after disasters. Since UAV-BSs are low power nodes, achieving high spectral and energy efficiency are of paramount importance. In this paper, we introduce non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) transmission for millimeter-wave (mmWave) drones serving as flying BSs at a large stadium potentially with several hundreds or thousands of mobile users. In particular, we make use of multi-antenna techniques specifically taking into consideration the…
To deal with the explosive growth of mobile traffic, millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications with abundant bandwidth resources have been applied to vehicular networks. As mmWave signal is sensitive to blockage, we introduce the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-aided two-way relaying system for vehicular connection enhancement and coverage expansion. How to improve transmission efficiency and to reduce latency time in such a dynamic scenario is a challenging problem. In this paper, we formulate the joint optimization problem of relay selection and transmission scheduling, aiming to reduce transmis…
Millimeter-wave (mmWave) hybrid analog-digital beamforming is a promising approach to satisfy the low-latency constraint in multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) systems, which serve as network infrastructure for flexible deployment. However, in highly dynamic multi-UAV environments, analog beam tracking becomes a critical challenge. The overhead of additional pilot transmission at the price of spectral efficiency is shown necessary to achieve high resilience in operation. An efficient method to deal with high dynamics of UAVs applies machine learning, particularly Q-learning, to analog bea…
The non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and millimeter-wave (mmWave) transmission enable the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) assisted wireless networks to provide broadband connectivity over densely packed urban areas. The presence of malicious receivers, however, compromise the security of the UAV-to-ground communications link, thereby degrading secrecy rates. In this work, we consider a NOMA-based transmission strategy in a mmWave UAV-assisted wireless network, and investigate the respective secrecy-rate performance rigorously. In particular, we propose a protected-zone approach to enhance t…
Millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication technology offers a potential and promising solution to support 5G and B5G wireless networks in dynamic scenarios and applications. However, mobility introduces many challenges as well as opportunities to mmWave applications. To address these problems, we conduct a survey of the opportunities and technologies to support mmWave communications in mobile scenarios. Firstly, we summarize the mobile scenarios where mmWave communications are exploited, including indoor wireless local area network (WLAN) or wireless personal area network (WPAN), cellular access,…
In this work, we explore the potential benefits of deploying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as aerial base stations (ABSs) with sub-6GHz band and small cells terrestrial base stations (TBSs) with millimeter wave (mmWave) band in a hybrid heterogeneous networks (HetNets). A flexible non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) based user association policy is proposed. By using the tools from stochastic geometry, new analytical expressions for association probability, coverage probability and spectrum efficiency are derived for characterizing the performance of UAV-aided HetNets under the realistic A…
It is anticipated that aerial-terrestrial integrated networks incorporating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) mounted relays will offer improved coverage and connectivity in the beyond 5G era. Meanwhile, federated learning (FL) is a promising distributed machine learning technique for building inference models over wireless networks due to its ability to maintain user privacy and reduce communication overhead. However, off-the-shelf FL models aggregate global parameters at a central parameter server (CPS), increasing energy consumption and latency, as well as inefficiently utilizing radio resour…
In this paper, we consider an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based wireless network using non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) transmission in millimeter-wave frequencies to deliver broadband data in a spectrally efficient fashion at hotspot scenarios. The necessity for the NOMA transmitter to gather information on user channel quality becomes a major drawback in practical deployments. We therefore consider various limited feedback schemes for NOMA transmission, to relieve the complexity of tracking and feeding back the full channel state information (CSI) of the users. In particular, through …
