UAV Jitter May Have Merit: A Fading Analysis in Air-to-Sea Two Ray Channels

Abstract

Jitter effects caused by airflow and vibrations could be harmful to UAV communications, e.g., it may cause mismatch between the transmit beam and actual user direction. However, jitter introduces additional randomness to the channel, which may have merit in sparse channels that are relatively static and deep faded. For this consideration, we pick the commonly used air-to-sea two ray propagation model and investigate the impact of UAV jitter on the channel fading statistics. Assuming a Gaussian random model for the jitter angle, we derive analytical expressions for the jitter-beneficial probability (the probability that UAV jitter increases the receive power), and the average receive power under jitter, respectively. Accordingly, the jitter-beneficial conditions are analyzed and verified via simulations.