Cluster Characteristics Analysis of UAV Air-to-Air Channels Based on Ray Tracing and Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Network with Gradient Penalty

Air-to-air (A2A) communication plays a vital role in low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks and demands accurate channel modeling to support system analysis and design. A key challenge in A2A channel modeling lies in extracting reliable cluster characteristics, which are often limited due to the scarcity of measurement data. To overcome this limitation, a cluster characteristic analysis method is proposed for UAV A2A channels in built-up environments. First, we reconstruct virtual urban environments, followed by the acquisition of A2A channel data using ray tracing (RT) techniques. Then, a kernel power density (KPD) clustering algorithm is applied to group the multipath components (MPCs). To enhance the modeling accuracy of intra-cluster angular offsets in both elevation and azimuth domains, a Wasserstein generative adversarial network with gradient penalty (WGAN-GP) is further introduced for generative modeling. A comprehensive analysis is conducted on key cluster characteristics, including the intra-cluster number of MPCs, intra-cluster delay and angular spreads, number of clusters, and angular distributions. The numerical results demonstrate that the proposed WGAN-GP-based approach achieves superior angular fitting accuracy compared to conventional empirical distribution methods.