Second-Order Statistics and Burst Error Analysis of UAV-to-UAV Rician Fading Channels

An arbitrary-elevation two-cylinder geometry-based stochastic model is described for non-isotropic scattering UAV-to-UAV (U2U) Rician fading channels, which takes into account the line-of-sight (LoS), the single-bounced, and the double-bounced rays. The second-order channel statistics are derived from the proposed reference model, including the envelope level crossing rate (LCR) and the average fade duration (AFD). Notably, the key parameters in the LCR are reduced to closed-form, which are shown to be the generalizations of the previously reported ones from the two-ring model. The good agreement between the theoretical and the simulated LCRs/AFDs demonstrates not only the usefulness of the simulation models but also the correctness of the theoretical derivations. Based on those analytical expressions, the impacts of some unique model parameters are studied on the LCR, and the burst error rate of the U2U Rician fading channels is analyzed via the AFD.