Measurement-Based Propagation Channel Modeling for Communication between a UAV and a USV

With the development of fifth generation (5G) mobile communication, unmanned vehicles have become more and more popular, with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) being the most common ones. Collaborative operation between multiple kinds of unmanned vehicles is the trend for the future development and direct reliable communications between autonomous vehicles are mission-critical in some applications such as communication relaying and heterogeneous ad-hoc networks. This paper presents a measurement campaign for the channel between a UAV and a USV by the seaside. The UAV hovers at an altitude of 50 meters over the harbor, and the USV sails out from the breakwater with a total track length of around 3.1 km. Analyses are made on both large-scale and small-scale channel characteristics, including path loss, shadow fading, and multipath fading. The obtained results are of utmost relevance for the development of communication systems between UAVs and USVs.