Analyzing Effects of Directionality and Random Heights in Drone-based mmWave Communication

Utilization of drones as aerial access points (AAPs) is a promising concept to enhance network coverage and area capacity promptly and on demand. The emerging millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication technology may in principle deliver higher data rates, thus making the use of AAPs more effective. By extending the conventional (planar) stochastic geometry considerations, we construct a novel three-dimensional model for drone-based mmWave communication that captures the high directionality of transmissions as well as the random heights of the communicating entities. Choosing signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) as our primary parameter of interest, we assess system performance with an emphasis on the impact of the ‘vertical’ dimension in aerial mmWave connectivity. We also demonstrate that accurate performance assessment is only possible with simplified models for certain ranges of input parameters.