Performance Analysis of AFD and LCR in 3-D
MIMO Channels for LAP Airborne Communications
Anurag Vijay Agrawal1, Meenakshi Rawat2
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkeee
Roorkee, India
1anuraga@ieee.org, 2meenakshirawat@ieee.org
Abstract—The authors investigate a three-dimensional (3-D)
multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) Air-to-Ground (A-to-G)
multipath Rician fading channel. The analysis is made
corresponding to the fading channel second order statistics,
where the behavior of the key performance indicators, Level
Crossing Rate (LCR) and Average Fade Duration (AFD), for the
low altitude platform (LAP) Airborne Communications is
studied. The paper presents multiple measurements to carry out
the effects of transmitter speed, receiver speed, and the Rician
factor on the LCR and the AFD parameters. These results are
useful for the modeling of LAP 3-D MIMO propagation channels
and the performance analysis of Airborne communication
systems.
Keywords—AFD, Air-to-Ground, Airborne Communications,
LAP, LCR, MIMO, Multipath Fading
I. INTRODUCTION
Now-a-days, airborne communication networks attract the
attention of governments, researchers and industries worldwide
for being capable to provide reliable wireless communication
services [1],[2], where the original focus is on high altitude
platform technologies, which operates at an altitude of greater
than 10 kilometers (kms) [3]. However, low altitude platforms
(LAPs) that include aerostats and aerodynes, have recently
been developed as a prominent technology to provide wireless
communication services at altitudes of upto 10 kms. These
platforms are very useful to complement conventional satellite
or terrestrial communications infrastructures [4]-[6].
The military uses of LAPs have long been investigated and
their ability to stealth at very low altitudes is well-known.
Today, however, trends in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
design show significant civilian perspectives for the wider use
of LAP technologies. Particularly, a global interest has been
growing for LAP technologies worldwide to various human-
benefitting applications [7]-[9] like photographic
reconnaissance, urban/suburban traffic surveillance, post-
disaster emergency situations, agricultural image processing,
ray tracing, beamforming, and so on.
The design of airborne communication systems, having
enhanced spectrum efficiency and superior reliability
performance, requires multiple antenna cofigurations and also
the multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) diversity
techniques [10]. The MIMO scheme performance is strongly
conditioned on the radio propagation channel and is very
advantageous for range extension of the airborne
communication system. Thus a detailed analysis of the
statistical properties of the fading channel utilizing MIMO
diversity schemes is necessary for successfully analyzing Air-
to-Ground (A-to-G) communications.
The authors in [11] have reported an accurate stochastic
reference model, where the received multipath Rayleigh fading
channel envelope has different statistical properties as
compared to cellular fixed-to-mobile channel. It is to be noted
that the elevated base station antennas for a fixed-to-mobile
channel are expected to be free from local scattering. The
narrowband MIMO multipath fading channels have been
appropriately modelled using the ‘two-ring’ geometry [12].
Recently, a long term evolution (LTE) downlink signal has
been acquired for the A-to-G UAV channels, where the authors
[13] consider several flight routes, both in horizontal as well as
in vertical direction. Various fading channel characteristics
such as the delay spread, path loss, shadow fading, and
Doppler frequency spread are reported by the authors for
varying heights and horizontal distances. Most of the existing
models [14]-[16] are based on the assumption that the incident
fields, on the transmitter (Tx) / receiver (Rx) antennas, are
composed of signal waves propagating only in two-
dimensional (2-D) horizontal plane. However, it is true for
rural areas only, and not for urban/suburban environments,
where the scattered waves may travel by way of diffraction or
deflection or reflection and, thus, not essentially travel in the
horizontal plane [17]. Several authors [18],[19] claim that the
fading due to scattering by the moving objects may be
successfully modelled with Rician distribution. Therefore, a
three-dimensional (3-D) reference model has been required to
analyze the time varying effects in A-to-G multipath
propagation channel and to completely characterize the fading
channel.
Additionally, most of the authors have investigated first-
order statistics parameters, such as the outage and the error
probabilities, and space-time/space-frequency channel
correlation properties [20]-[22] for analyzing A-to-G multipath
fading channels. But, the study of the second order statistics for
the aforesaid multipath fading models is somewhat missing
from the literature. It is to be noted that these second order
statistics relate the rate of change of the received signal over
time/frequency to the signal envelope amplitude as well as to
the speeds of both the Tx and the Rx [23]-[25]. A dynamic TABLE I. SIMULATION PARAMETERS
representation of the fading channel is achieved by the second Name Value(s)
order statistics analysis, which is very helpful in performance Transmission System Type LAP Airborne Communications
evaluation and design of the A-to-G communication system. Channel Type 3-D Air-to-Ground
This study plays an important role in designing error control Scattering Type Non-isotropic
codes and applying MIMO transmit/receive diversity schemes Bandwidth 10 MHz
in airborne transmission technologies. The authors in this paper Carrier Frequency 2 GHz
Antenna Arrangement MIMO 2×2
examine the two key second-order statistical performance Tx / Rx Antenna Spacing 2λ
indicators, the level crossing rate (LCR) and average fade Tx speed (kmph) 100, 200, 500, 700, 1000
duration (AFD), for a 10 MHz downlink LTE signal Rx speed (kmph) 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000
communicating through a MIMO 2×2 A-to-G multipath Rician Number of Samples 10000
fading channel. Sampling Frequency 15.36 MHz
Tx-Rx Distance (meters) 1000
The remainder of the paper is outlined as: A short Rician factor (k-factor) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
explanation of A-to-G channel analysis is given in Section II. Spread of Scatterers around Rx 5
Section III incudes system simulation parameters and the Maximum Elevation Angle 500
mathematical description of the performance metrics. Section around Rx
IV consists of the results with discussion and, finally, the paper
concludes with Section V.
III. SYSTEM MODEL
II. A-TO-G CHANNEL ANALYSIS The authors present a 3-D MIMO A-to-G multipath fading
The A-to-G multipath fading channel is modelled as a channel design simulation model having Rician distribution
linear time-variant system [26], whose complex baseband and a finite number of scatterers around Rx.
equivalent impulse response h(t1,t2) can be expressed as Consider the exemplary system given in Table I. The
M performance analysis in this paper is done for two important
h(t1 , t2 )   ai (t1 ) exp{ jpi (t1 )}{t 2  d i (t1 )} (1) second-order channel statistics parameters: LCR and AFD.
i 0 These parameters optimally inform about the dynamic
where M is number of time-varying multipath components of temporal behaviour of the multipath fading channels with
the channel; t1 is impulse orientation time; t2 is impulse respect to time.
application time; ai, pi and di denote respectively the envelope
amplitude, propagation delay and phase shift of the i-th The received signal envelope fades with the Tx/Rx
multipath component. movements. The LCR at envelope F is defined as the rate at
which a fading signal envelope crosses the threshold F in any
The performance of A-to-G communication channels direction. Mathematically, LCR is given as [29]:
depends mainly on the operating frequency, Tx location, Rx
location, Tx speed, Rx speed, Tx-Rx distance, and elevation k  1 r1r3  r22  k  ( k 1) F2 2
angle to the LAP. The link reliability is directly proportional to LCR (F)  2 F
3 r12
e  0 cosh(2 k (k  1)
the elevation angle and is in inverse relationship with the
F cos  ) {e  sin 2    sin  .erf ( sin  )
}d
2
operating frequency. In addition, the random and unpredictable
nature of the propagation environment increases the modeling
(2)
complexity of the channels. There, it is suitable to describe the
propagation phenomenon in stochastic manner to account for where F is the threshold level in dB that is also known as
random fluctuations in the A-to-G channels. fading rate, k is Rician factor, ϕ is phase of the direct
component and ϕ ∈ [-π, π), φ is a parameter given by
The conventional two-ray model for A-to-G channels
assumes that there is only one reflection from the objects on   r2 k / r1r3  r22 . The parameters r1, r2, r3 are defined in
the ground [27]. These 2-D models opine that the field incident [30, Eq.s (21), (22), (23)].
on Tx/Rx antenna is composed of only those waves that travels
horizontally, which practically is not possible. Thus for the The AFD is defined as the average time over which the
sake of maintain accuracy in the modeling of practical A-to-G signal envelope never rises above a certain threshold value F.
MIMO multipath channels and for completely characterizing In other words, AFD quantifies for how long the signal
these channels, it is essential to develop 3-D channel models remains below the threshold value F. Mathematically, it is
for successful analysis of LAP Airborne Communication given as [31]
systems. While modeling 3-D channels, the authors generally
consider outdoor radio propagation scenario with direct path 1  Qm ( 2k , 2( k  1) F 2
AFD ( F )  (3)
and an assumption of having infinite number of scatterers. LCR ( F )
Unfortunately, this consideration of having infinite scatterers
prevent the practical implementation of the channel [28]. where Qm(x, y) is a Marcum Q-function and is given in [32].
 Fig. 1. Normalized AFD at various Tx speeds
Fig. 2. Normalized LCR at various Tx speeds
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This paper investigates the second order statistics in the A-
to-G Rician fading channel environment for the LAP airborne
communications system in terms of AFD and LCR, where the
impact of independent parameters, such as Tx speed, Rx speed,
and Rician k-factor is analyzed on these second-order fading
statistics parameters. The authors assume that both Tx and Rx
have two omnidirectional antennas, i.e., MIMO 2×2 case and
that both are moving in the same direction. All antenna
elements are of equal height, and the the antenna elements are
2 λ distance apart. The normalised AFD plots against the
threshold level F (dB) are shown in Fig. 1, Fig. 3 and Fig. 5
corresponding to varying Tx speeds, Rx speeds and k-factors
respectively; whereas the plots of the normalised LCR against
the threshold level F (dB) are shown in Fig. 2, Fig. 4 and Fig. 6
for the same independent parameters. These AFD plots observe
a typical Rician fading channel as AFD continually increases
Fig. 3. Normalized AFD at various Rx speeds
Fig. 4. Normalized LCR at various Rx speeds
with increase in the threshold. The LCR curves also report the
fading channel environment and the normalized LCR has been
increasing with the threshold F until it attains maxima and then
starts decreasing.
Fig. 1 shows AFD curves for various Tx speeds, ranging
from 100 kmph to 1000 kmph. It is noticed that when the Tx
speed increases, the normalized AFD increases gradually. This
means that the signal envelope corresponding to the faster Tx
is required to remain for a longer time below a certain
threshold, as compared to a slow Tx. As LCR is inversely
proportional to the AFD, so its dynamic behavior can be
inferred from Fig. 1.
Fig. 2 shows LCR curves for the Tx speeds, varying from
100 kmph to 1000 kmph. It is investigated from these curves
that higher Tx speeds have low normalized LCR values, which
specifies that the LCR for the Tx at 100 kmph has the lowest
fading rate. As the LCR curve, corresponding to 1000 kmph
 Fig. 5. Normalized AFD at various k-factor values
Tx speed, has more length in the positive direction; it means
that the 1000 kmph signal comparatively fades more in the Tx
positive moving direction. These observations suggest that the
airborne communications Tx should slowly move in the
azimuth/elevation directions to establish a stable A-to-G link.
Fig. 3 shows AFD curves for various Rx speeds, ranging
from 50 kmph to 1000 kmph. It is noticed that when the
Rxspeed increases, the normalized AFD decreases gradually.
This means that the signal envelope corresponding to the faster
Rx is required to remain for a less time below a certain
threshold, as compared to a slower Rx. Fig. 4 shows LCR
curves for the Rx speeds, varying from 50 kmph to 1000 kmph.
It is investigated from these curves that higher Rx speeds have
high normalized LCR values, which specifies that the LCR for
the Rx at 1000 kmph has the lowest fading rate, i.e. the signal
envelope fades slowly in this case, as comparable to the lower
Rx speeds in any direction. The LCR curve for 50 kmph Rx
has more length in the positive direction, which reflects that the
50 kmph signal fades more in the Rx positive moving
direction. The AFD and LCR depend on the Rx speed, which
means means that these parameters also depend on the
maximum Doppler shift frequency.
Fig. 5 shows the normalized AFD curves for different
Rician factors. It is envisaged that the AFD increases with
increase in the Rician factor value. The reason is that the fading
envelope is highly correlated for larger k values. Thus, if the
signal envelope fading takes place below some specified level,
it is very cumbersome to exceed that threshold level. Fig. 6
shows the LCR of a 3-D MIMO Channel for different Rician
factors, where the LCR decreases if the k-factor value is
increased. The reason is that the channel fading has a greater
correlation with a larger amount of line-of-sight signal
envelope components. Accordingly, the change in channel
fading reduces as soon as the correlation occurs.
The phenomenon is that the scatterers will dominate the
channel model whenever k is small. Unfortunately, the
simulation may only produce finite scatterers, thus, may not
approach the ideal case of having infinite number of scatterers.
Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 further predict that the finite scatterers are not
Fig. 6. Normalized LCR at various k-factor values
very significant for larger k values as compared with the
smaller k-factor value cases. It is also to be noted that AFD
and LCR plots for different k-factor values perform in the
usual behaviour. Particularly, these plots converge around a
certain threshold value (F = 0 dB) almost independently for all
values of k.
V. CONCLUSION
A 3-D MIMO A-to-G reference model has been reviewed
in multipath Rician channel for the LAP Airborne
Communications system. Numerical results in the form of
curves are presented to investigate the important second-order
channel statistics parameters AFD and LCR with varying
independent parameters Tx speeds, Rx speeds, and the Rician
factors. Simulation analysis shows that these independent
parameters have significant effect on the aforesaid two fading
statistics of Rician channel. Overall, the paper provides a novel
and practical approach to investigate and design modern LAP
airborne communication systems.
REFERENCES
[1] X. Cao, P. Yang, M. Alzenad, X. Xi, D. Wu and H. Yanikomeroglu,
"Airborne Communication Networks: A Survey," IEEE Journal on
Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 36, no. 9, pp. 1907-1926, Sept.
2018.
[2] B. Li, Z. Fei and Y. Zhang, "UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond:
Recent Advances and Future Trends," IEEE Internet of Things Journal,
vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 2241-2263, April 2019.
[3] E. Setiawan, "The Potential Use of High Altitude Platform Station in
Rural Telecommunication Infrastructure," 2018 International
Conference on ICT for Rural Development (IC-ICTRuDev), Badung
Regency, Indonesia, 2018, pp. 35-37.
[4] A. Al-Hourani, S. Kandeepan and S. Lardner, "Optimal LAP Altitude
for Maximum Coverage," IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, vol.
3, no. 6, pp. 569-572, Dec. 2014.
[5] K. Gomez, T. Rasheed, L. Reynaud and S. Kandeepan, "On the
performance of aerial LTE base-stations for public safety and
emergency recovery," 2013 IEEE Globecom Workshops (GC Wkshps),
Atlanta, GA, 2013, pp. 1391-1396.
[6] L. Zhao, C. Zhang, H. Zhang, X. Li and L. Hanzo, "Power-Efficient
Radio Resource Allocation for Low-Medium-Altitude Aerial Platform
 Based TD-LTE Networks," 2012 IEEE Vehicular Technology
Conference (VTC Fall), Quebec City, QC, 2012, pp. 1-5.
[7] N. Hossein Motlagh, T. Taleb and O. Arouk, "Low-Altitude Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles-Based Internet of Things Services: Comprehensive
Survey and Future Perspectives," IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol.
3, no. 6, pp. 899-922, Dec. 2016.
[8] S. Allsopp, "Emergency airborne 4G comms to aid Disaster Traffic
Management," Road Transport Information and Control Conference
2014 (RTIC 2014), London, UK, 2014, pp. 1-7.
[9] H. Shakhatreh, A. H. Sawalmeh, A. Al-Fuqaha, Z. Dou, E. Almaita, I.
Khalil, N. S. Othman, A. Khreishah, M. Guizani, "Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles (UAVs): A Survey on Civil Applications and Key Research
Challenges," IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 48572-48634, 2019.
[10] A. V. Agrawal and M. Rawat, "RFPA Nonlinearity Compensation with
MIMO Diversity for Indoor Channels," 2018 5th IEEE Uttar Pradesh
Section International Conference on Electrical, Electronics and
Computer Engineering (UPCON), Gorakhpur, Nov. 2018, pp. 1-5.
[11] F. Vatalaro and A. Forcella, "Doppler spectrum in mobile-to-mobile
communications in the presence of three-dimensional multipath
scattering," IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 46, no. 1,
pp. 213-219, Feb. 1997.
[12] L. Liang, H. Peng, G. Y. Li and X. Shen, "Vehicular Communications:
A Physical Layer Perspective," IEEE Transactions on Vehicular
Technology, vol. 66, no. 12, pp. 10647-10659, Dec. 2017.
[13] X. Cai, J. Pineiro, X. Yin, N. Wang, B. Ai, G. F. Pedersen, and A. P.
Yuste , "An Empirical Air-to-Ground Channel Model Based on Passive
Measurements in LTE," IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology,
vol. 68, no. 2, pp. 1140-1154, Feb. 2019.
[14] J. P. Kermoal, L. Schumacher, K. I. Pedersen, P. E. Mogensen and F.
Frederiksen, "A stochastic MIMO radio channel model with
experimental validation," IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in
Communications, vol. 20, no. 6, pp. 1211-1226, Aug. 2002.
[15] A. G. Zajic and G. L. Stuber, "Space-Time Correlated Mobile-to-Mobile
Channels: Modelling and Simulation," IEEE Transactions on Vehicular
Technology, vol. 57, no. 2, pp. 715-726, March 2008.
[16] M. Wentz and M. Stojanovic, "A MIMO Radio Channel Model for
Low-Altitude Air-to-Ground Communication Systems," 2015 IEEE
82nd Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2015-Fall), Boston, MA,
2015, pp. 1-6.
[17] A. Kammoun, H. Khanfir, Z. Altman, M. Debbah and M. Kamoun,
"Preliminary Results on 3D Channel Modeling: From Theory to
Standardization," IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications,
vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 1219-1229, June 2014.
[18] M. R. Bhatnagar and A. M.K., "On the Closed-Form Performance
Analysis of Maximal Ratio Combining in Shadowed-Rician Fading
LMS Channels," IEEE Communications Letters, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 54-
57, January 2014.
[19] L. J. Greenstein, S. S. Ghassemzadeh, V. Erceg and D. G. Michelson,
"Ricean K-Factors in Narrow-Band Fixed Wireless Channels: Theory,
Experiments, and Statistical Models," IEEE Transactions on Vehicular
Technology, vol. 58, no. 8, pp. 4000-4012, Oct. 2009.
[20] A. G. Zajic and G. L. Stüber“Statistical properties of wideband MIMO
mobile-to-mobile channels,” Proc. IEEE WCNC, Las Vegas, NV, Apr.
2008, pp. 763–768.
[21] M. A. Skima, A. Boulaaba and H. Ghariani, "On the first- and second-
order statistical properties of different Rayleigh fading channel
models," 2015 9th International Conference on Electrical and
Electronics Engineering (ELECO), Bursa, 2015, pp. 1207-1211.
[22] N. Youssef, Cheng-Xiang Wang, M. Patzold, I. Jaafar and S. Tabbane,
"On the statistical properties of generalized Rice multipath fading
channels," 2004 IEEE 59th Vehicular Technology Conference. VTC
2004-Spring, Milan, 2004, pp. 162-165 Vol.1.
[23] G. N. Tavares, "On the Statistics of the IEEE 802.11n/ac Fading
Channel Models," IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, vol. 5, no. 3,
pp. 272-275, June 2016.
[24] S. Hazra and R. Bhattacharjee, "A new technique for derivation of LCR
and AFD in wideband wireless channel," 2013 National Conference on
Communications (NCC), New Delhi, India, 2013, pp. 1-5.
[25] A. Olutayo, H. Ma, J. Cheng and J. F. Holzman, "Level Crossing Rate
and Average Fade Duration for the Beaulieu-Xie Fading Model," IEEE
Wireless Communications Letters, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 326-329, June 2017.
[26] Y. Ding, Y. Xiao, J. Xie and T. Zhang, "A time-varying transition
channel model for air-ground communication," 2017 IEEE/AIAA 36th
Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC), St. Petersburg, FL, 2017,
pp. 1-8.
[27] E. Zöchmann, K. Guan and M. Rupp, "Two-ray models in mmWave
communications," 2017 IEEE 18th International Workshop on Signal
Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (SPAWC), Sapporo,
2017, pp. 1-5.
[28] Patzold, Hogstad, Youssef and Dongwoo Kim, "A MIMO Mobile-To-
Mobile Channel Model: Part I - The Reference Model," 2005 IEEE 16th
International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio
Communications, Berlin, 2005, pp. 573-578.
[29] D. B. Da Costa, J. C. Silveira Santos Filho, M. D. Yacoub and G.
Fraidenraich, "Second-Order Statistics of η-μ Fading Channels: Theory
and Applications," IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications,
vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 819-824, March 2008.
[30] L. Zeng, X. Cheng, C. Wang and X. Yin, "Second Order Statistics of
Non-Isotropic UAV Ricean Fading Channels," 2017 IEEE 86th
Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC-Fall), Toronto, ON, 2017, pp.
1-5.
[31] L. Wang, W. Liu and Y. Cheng, "Statistical Analysis of a Mobile-to-
Mobile Rician Fading Channel Model," IEEE Transactions on Vehicular
Technology, vol. 58, no. 1, pp. 32-38, Jan. 2009.
[32] G. E. Corazza and G. Ferrari, "New bounds for the Marcum Q-
function," IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 48, no. 11,
pp. 3003-3008, Nov. 2002.