UAV Communication Recovery under Meteorological Conditions

Abstract

Our study proposes a UAV communications recovery strategy under meteorological conditions based on a ray tracing simulation of excessive path loss in four distinct three-dimensional (3D) urban environments. We start by reviewing the air-to-ground propagation loss model under meteorological conditions, as well as the specific attenuation of rain, fog, and snow, and we propose a new expression for line-of-sight (LoS) probability. Using the two frequency bands of 28 GHz and 71 GHz, we investigate the impact of specific attenuation caused by different weather conditions and analyze the relationship between the radius of the UAV coverage area and the elevation angle. Furthermore, we investigate the effects of the rainfall rate, liquid water density, and snowfall rate on the maximum coverage area and optimal height of the UAV. Eventually, we propose a strategy that involves compensating for the maximum path loss and adjusting the UAV’s position to recover the coverage of the UAV to ground users. Our results show that rain has the greatest impact on the UAV’s coverage area and optimum height among the three types of weather conditions. For various weather conditions, relative to Region 1, the percentage reduction in the maximum coverage radius of Region 2 to Region 4 increases gradually, and the extent of each increase is approximately 10%. Moreover, after adding the compensated path loss, the coverage radius of the UAV in the four regions is restored to a value slightly larger than that before the rain. In addition, rain caused the greatest reduction in UAV coverage for suburban environments and the lowest for high-rise urban environments.