In this article, we introduce a new metric for driving the serving cell selection process of a swarm of cellular connected unmanned aerial vehicles (CCUAVs) located on aerial highways when served by a massive multiple input multiple output (mMIMO) terrestrial network. Selecting the optimal serving cell from several suitable candidates is not straightforward. By solely relying on the traditional cell selection metric, based on reference signal received power (RSRP), it is possible to result in a scenario in which the serving cell can not multiplex an appropriate number of CCUAVs due to the high correlation in the line of sight (LoS) channels. To overcome such issue, in this work, we introduce a new cell selection metric to capture not only signal strength, but also spatial multiplexing capabilities. The proposed metric highly depends on the relative position between the aerial highways and the antennas of the base station. The numerical analysis indicates that the integration of the proposed new metric allows to have a better signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) performance on the aerial highways, resulting in a more reliable cellular connection for CCUAVs.
翻译:在本文中,我们引入了一种新的计量标准,用于驱动由大型多输入多输出(mMIMO)地面网络服务的一群无人机连接的细胞(CCUAV)在空中公路上的选择过程。从几个合适的候选项中选择最佳服务细胞并不简单。仅依靠传统的基于参考信号接收功率(RSRP)的细胞选择度量标准可能会导致无法复用足够数量的CCUAV,原因是LoS通道具有很高的相关性。为了解决这个问题,在这项工作中,我们引入了一种新的细胞选择度量标准,旨在捕捉信号强度以及空间多路复用能力。所提出的度量高度依赖于空中高速公路与基站天线之间的相对位置。数值分析表明,集成所提出的新度量标准可让空中公路具有更好的信干噪比(SINR)表现,从而为CCUAV提供更可靠的蜂窝连接。