Performance Analysis of Millimeter-Wave UAV Swarm Networks under Blockage Effects

Abstract

Due to their high mobility, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can offer better connectivity by complement or replace with the existing terrestrial base stations (BSs) in the mobile cellular networks. In particular, introducing UAV and millimeter wave (mmWave) technologies can better support the future wireless networks with requirements of high data rate, low latency, and seamless connectivity. However, it is widely known that mmWave signals are susceptible to blockages because of their poor diffraction. In this context, we consider macro-diversity achieved by the multiple UAV BSs, which are randomly distributed in a spherical swarm. Using the widely used channel model incorporated with the distance-based random blockage effects, which is proposed based on stochastic geometry and random shape theory, we investigate the outage performance of the mmWave UAV swarm network. Further, based on our analysis, we show how to minimize the outage rate by adjusting various system parameters such as the size of the UAV swarm relative to the distance to the receiver.