Obstacle Shadowing in Vehicle-to-Satellite Communication: Impact of Location, Street Layout, Building Height, and LEO Satellite Constellation

Future cooperative mobile systems all commonly share three characteristics: High reliance on stable and performant network connectivity, high mobility of involved nodes, and operation in both cities and remote/rural areas, where uninterrupted availability of the required infrastructure cannot be guaranteed. Researchers and industry alike are thus looking towards Vehicle-to-Satellite (V2S) communication with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites to bridge connectivity gaps. Yet, the interplay of many parameters impacting system performance is frequently overlooked. In this paper, we present an extensive simulation study investigating the impact of all of: ground station location on Earth, small-scale ground station position in the overall city layout (regarding both neighboring building locations and heights), and properties of LEO satellite constellations (in terms of both density and inclination). We found that each of these many parameters substantially impacts the performance of V2S communication. At the same time we could confirm that street and building geometry in the overall city layout give rise to systematic patterns in V2S connectivity on the ground.