How Atmospheric Attenuation affects the UAV Communication Network?

Abstract

The benefits of 5G millimetre wave (mmWave) technology include high data throughput, very low latency, stable connectivity, and massive capacity. Furthermore, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being used as flying base stations to provide a viable option for reliable and cost-effective wireless communication. The goal of this research is to integrate a UAVassisted wireless network with a 5G mmWave communication system and assess coverage performance. The signal between the UAV and the user is heavily distorted by tropical atmospheric parameters such as rain, trees, and fog. This paper investigated the effect of attenuation on user coverage performance in the mmWave frequency bands of 28 GHz and 60 GHz (recommended by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for use in 5G cellular services). First, various factors such as rain rate, frequency, and foliage depth are used to calculate the attenuation of rain and foliage. Next, the suggested system model is used to analyse the likelihood of ground users’ downlink coverage in terms of total attenuation, channel gain, channel noise, and interference. However, the impacts of rain and foliage attenuation in various tropical locales cannot be avoided, even given the small cell size of the system.