Decoupled Downlink and Uplink Access for Aerial Terrestrial Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

To enable reliable connectivity in highly dynamic and dense communication environments, aerial-terrestrial heterogeneous cellular networks (AT-HCNs) have been proposed as a plausible enhancement to the conventional terrestrial HCNs (T-HCNs). In dense urban scenarios, users are often located in clusters and demand high bandwidth in both downlink (DL) and uplink (UL). We investigate this scenario and model the spatial distribution of clustered users using a Matern cluster process (MCP). Based on our analysis we then argue that decoupling of DL and UL in such a setting can significantly improve coverage performance and spectral efficiency. We further obtain closed-form expressions for the system coverage probability, spectral efficiency, and energy efficiency by using the Fox H-function. The obtained results confirm the validity of the proposed analytical model. Our simulations further indicate a significant performance improvement using decoupled access and provide quantitative insights on AT-HCN system design.