Empirical Line-of-Sight Probability Modeling for UAVs in Random Urban Layouts

Accurate Probability of Line-of-Sight $(P_{\text{LoS}})$ modeling is important in evaluating the performance of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-based communication systems in urban environments, where real-time communication and low latency are often major requirements. Existing $P_{L o S}$ models often rely on simplified Manhattan grid layouts using International Telecommunication Union (ITU)-defined builtup parameters, which may not reflect the randomness of real cities. Therefore, this paper introduces the Urban Line-ofSight Simulator (ULS) to model $P_{\text{LoS}}$ for three random city layouts with varying building sizes and shapes constructed using ITU built-up parameters. Based on the ULS simulated data, we obtained the empirical $P_{L o S}$ for four standard urban environments across three different city layouts. Finally, we analyze how well Manhattan grid-based models replicate $P_{L o S}$ results from random and real-world layouts, providing insights into their applicability for time-critical communication systems in urban IoT networks.