LAUSR

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) assisted cell-free communications hold promise for enhancing the coverage and capacity of heterogeneous cellular networks. However, the network interference in such scenarios must be accurately modeled for efficient system design. The spatial characteristics of the desired and interfering signals can be jointly modeled by considering the characteristics of the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR). This work proposes a generalized framework for modeling the spatial statistics of the SIR encountered in 3-D volumetric inter-vehicular communication channels. Though the novel paradigm of UAV-assisted cell-free vehicular communications is analyzed in particular, the proposed framework is more general in that it incorporates 3-D mobility at both link ends. Also, this framework is shown to include as its special cases, several notable 2-D propagation models of network interference including those for terrestrial vehicle-to-vehicle and fixed-to-vehicle scenarios. Analytical expressions are derived for the SIR level-crossing-rate (LCR), average-fade-duration (AFD), spatial auto-covariance (SAC), and coherence distance (CD). Both single- and multi-cluster scattering environments are analyzed and the impact of channel parameters such as the direction and velocity of mobile nodes as well as the altitudes of the UAV and scattering cluster(s) on the SIR fading statistics is investigated. Finally, some future extensions of this work are also discussed such as the integration of intelligent reflective surfaces in the propagation scenario to generate favorable channel conditions.