How Long Can I Transmit? A Mobility Aware mmWave-based UAV Communication Framework

2025-06-30

AI Summary

To address the challenge of modeling line-of-sight (LoS) link duration between millimeter-wave unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and mobile ground users, this paper derives, for the first time under a Manhattan Poisson line process (MPLP) urban model, a closed-form expression for the expected LoS duration between a static UAV and a mobile ground user. Building upon this, we propose a greedy user-association algorithm that maximizes LoS duration—departing from conventional distance-based association paradigms. Theoretical analysis and simulations demonstrate that the proposed algorithm significantly extends effective communication time and enhances network connectivity and transmission stability compared to the baseline “nearest LoS UAV” scheme. The core contribution lies in establishing a mobility-aware LoS duration model and leveraging it to achieve robust, frequency-sensitive association optimization for high-frequency wireless communications.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Search and Optimization: Algorithm Configuration
• Application Domains: Mobility, Driving & Flight

Application Category

• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Metrics for user behavior and evaluating success

Abstract

One primary focus of next generation wireless communication networks is the millimeterwave (mmWave) spectrum, typically considered in the 30 GHz to 300 GHz frequency range. Despite their promise of high data rates, mmWaves suffer from severe attenuation while passing through obstacles. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been proposed to offset this limitation on account of their additional degrees of freedom, which can be leveraged to provide line of sight (LoS) transmission paths. While some prior works have proposed analytical frameworks to compute the LoS probability for static ground users and a UAV, the same is lacking for mobile users on the ground. In this paper, we consider the popular Manhattan point line process (MPLP) to model an urban environment, within which a ground user moves with a known velocity for a small time interval along the roads. We derive an expression for the expected duration of LoS between a static UAV in the air and a mobile ground user, and validate the same through simulations. To demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed analysis, we propose a simple user association algorithm that greedily assigns the UAVs to users with the highest expected LoS time, and show that it outperforms the existing benchmark schemes that assign the users to the nearest UAVs with LoS without considering the user mobility.

Problem

• Modeling LoS duration between UAVs and mobile ground users
• Analyzing mmWave communication in urban mobility scenarios
• Optimizing UAV-user association based on expected LoS time

Innovation

• UAV mmWave communication for LoS paths
• Manhattan model for urban mobility analysis
• Greedy algorithm for UAV-user LoS optimization