Performance Analysis for UAV-Assisted mmWave Cellular Networks

It is feasible to increase coverage area and throughout with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), as an assist to ground base station (GBS). In this paper, a 3-dimension (3-D) channel model, where UAVs are modeled by 3-D Poisson point process (PPP) and GBSs are modeled by 2-dimension (2-D) PPP, is proposed. Different path loss model for line-of-sight (LOS), non-LOS (NLOS) links and directional beamforming are considered. Moreover, the general expressions for signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) coverage probabilities, user throughput and area spectral efficiency (ASE) are derived. Our numerical and simulation results show that with the proposed 3-D channel model, the coverage probability of mmWave networks is greatly improved compared with sub-6GHz networks. Furthermore, the effects of the beamwidth of the main lobe, the main lobe directivity gain and UAV density on the performance of mmWave networks are analyzed.