Data-Driven Shadow Fading Generation Method for Low-Altitude Communications

The propagation channel is fundamental to designing and optimizing reliable low-altitude communication systems. This paper proposes a shadow fading (SF) generation method with spatially correlated properties. In this method, we obtain a large amount of SF data via ray-tracing (RT) simulations. A parametric lognormal model is employed to statistically characterize the SF, and the probability density function (PDF) and spatial cross-correlation function (CCF) are analyzed to acquire the statistical parameters used in the proposed generation method. In addition, a Gaussian process generation method based on the Sum-of-Sinusoids (SoS) principle is proposed to guarantee the cross-correlation of the generated SF. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method is capable of generating lognormal random processes with specific PDF and CCF that closely match the statistical characteristics of SF observed in the theoretical ground truth.