UAV Channel Models: Review and Future Research

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) or drones, is growing, for an expanding variety of applications, and this growth is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Since these platforms are not only mobile, but can ascend to significant altitudes above the earth, channel models for ground to/from UAVs are distinct from typical terrestrial channel models. Because of the importance of wireless channel models for communications (and navigation, surveillance), work on UAV-ground channels has seen much recent attention. In this paper we provide a review of the UAV wireless channel. We compare with other types of channels, and review some measurements and current models. We finish with a discussion of future work on UAV channel modeling.