Aerial-Terrestrial Heterogeneous Networks for Urban Air Mobility: A Performance Analysis

Urban air mobility (UAM) is increasingly capturing the attention of researchers and industry experts, as it holds the promise of providing faster and more economical solutions for urban commuting. Ensuring reliable communication for UAM aircraft is of paramount importance in maintaining operational...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Abdullah Abu Zaid, Baha Eddine Youcef Belmekki, Mohamed-Slim Alouini
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Open Journal of Vehicular Technology
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10925893/
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849729689334054912
author Abdullah Abu Zaid
Baha Eddine Youcef Belmekki
Mohamed-Slim Alouini
author_facet Abdullah Abu Zaid
Baha Eddine Youcef Belmekki
Mohamed-Slim Alouini
author_sort Abdullah Abu Zaid
collection DOAJ
description Urban air mobility (UAM) is increasingly capturing the attention of researchers and industry experts, as it holds the promise of providing faster and more economical solutions for urban commuting. Ensuring reliable communication for UAM aircraft is of paramount importance in maintaining operational safety. To that end, we use stochastic geometry tools to analyze the joint uplink-downlink coverage probability of an integrated aerial-terrestrial heterogeneous network (HetNet) for UAM aircraft, specifically electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles. We assume eVTOLs travel on predefined air corridors which are modeled as a Poisson line process (PLP). Furthermore, we model the spatial distribution of eVTOLs as a Matern hardcore process (MHCP) with a designated safety distance. We model the aerial base stations (ABSs) as a two-dimensional (2D) binomial point process (BPP), and the terrestrial base stations (TBSs) as a 2D Poisson point process (PPP). We use a suitable air-to-ground channel model to include line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) transmissions. In the paper, we derive distance distributions to the closest ABS, LOS TBS, and NLOS TBS to a typical eVTOL, then we provide the association probability of each BS. Furthermore, we characterize the uplink interference and derive Laplace transforms for the PLP-MHCP distributed eVTOLs. Finally, we derive the coverage probability of the overall HetNet and carry out Monte Carlo simulations to validate our expressions.
format Article
id doaj-art-6edc2619718b47df868d39ba7bf3b7de
institution DOAJ
issn 2644-1330
language English
publishDate 2025-01-01
publisher IEEE
record_format Article
series IEEE Open Journal of Vehicular Technology
spelling doaj-art-6edc2619718b47df868d39ba7bf3b7de2025-08-20T03:09:08ZengIEEEIEEE Open Journal of Vehicular Technology2644-13302025-01-01691292610.1109/OJVT.2025.355120910925893Aerial-Terrestrial Heterogeneous Networks for Urban Air Mobility: A Performance AnalysisAbdullah Abu Zaid0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2219-6940Baha Eddine Youcef Belmekki1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7634-4032Mohamed-Slim Alouini2https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4827-1793King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi ArabiaSchool of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, U.K.King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi ArabiaUrban air mobility (UAM) is increasingly capturing the attention of researchers and industry experts, as it holds the promise of providing faster and more economical solutions for urban commuting. Ensuring reliable communication for UAM aircraft is of paramount importance in maintaining operational safety. To that end, we use stochastic geometry tools to analyze the joint uplink-downlink coverage probability of an integrated aerial-terrestrial heterogeneous network (HetNet) for UAM aircraft, specifically electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles. We assume eVTOLs travel on predefined air corridors which are modeled as a Poisson line process (PLP). Furthermore, we model the spatial distribution of eVTOLs as a Matern hardcore process (MHCP) with a designated safety distance. We model the aerial base stations (ABSs) as a two-dimensional (2D) binomial point process (BPP), and the terrestrial base stations (TBSs) as a 2D Poisson point process (PPP). We use a suitable air-to-ground channel model to include line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) transmissions. In the paper, we derive distance distributions to the closest ABS, LOS TBS, and NLOS TBS to a typical eVTOL, then we provide the association probability of each BS. Furthermore, we characterize the uplink interference and derive Laplace transforms for the PLP-MHCP distributed eVTOLs. Finally, we derive the coverage probability of the overall HetNet and carry out Monte Carlo simulations to validate our expressions.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10925893/Heterogeneous networksstochastic geometrycoverage probabilityurban air mobilityaerial platformspoisson point process
spellingShingle Abdullah Abu Zaid
Baha Eddine Youcef Belmekki
Mohamed-Slim Alouini
Aerial-Terrestrial Heterogeneous Networks for Urban Air Mobility: A Performance Analysis
IEEE Open Journal of Vehicular Technology
Heterogeneous networks
stochastic geometry
coverage probability
urban air mobility
aerial platforms
poisson point process
title Aerial-Terrestrial Heterogeneous Networks for Urban Air Mobility: A Performance Analysis
title_full Aerial-Terrestrial Heterogeneous Networks for Urban Air Mobility: A Performance Analysis
title_fullStr Aerial-Terrestrial Heterogeneous Networks for Urban Air Mobility: A Performance Analysis
title_full_unstemmed Aerial-Terrestrial Heterogeneous Networks for Urban Air Mobility: A Performance Analysis
title_short Aerial-Terrestrial Heterogeneous Networks for Urban Air Mobility: A Performance Analysis
title_sort aerial terrestrial heterogeneous networks for urban air mobility a performance analysis
topic Heterogeneous networks
stochastic geometry
coverage probability
urban air mobility
aerial platforms
poisson point process
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10925893/
work_keys_str_mv AT abdullahabuzaid aerialterrestrialheterogeneousnetworksforurbanairmobilityaperformanceanalysis
AT bahaeddineyoucefbelmekki aerialterrestrialheterogeneousnetworksforurbanairmobilityaperformanceanalysis
AT mohamedslimalouini aerialterrestrialheterogeneousnetworksforurbanairmobilityaperformanceanalysis