Variable-bandwidth model and capacity analysis for aerial communications in the terahertz band

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/JSAC.2021.3071831

In this work, 0.75-10 THz band is explored for non-terrestrial communications, by leveraging the improved atmospheric conditions at various altitudes. A channel model for aerial communications at THz band is proposed to calculate the common flat bands for frequency-selective path gain and the colored noise spectrums, both of which are highly affected by the atmospheric conditions. With capacity computation based on common flat bands, we consider aerial vehicles at different altitudes and distances, under realistic weather and channel fading conditions, due to beam misalignment and also multi path fading. An extensive capacity analysis is presented, considering equal and water-filling power allocation. It is shown that, when there is no fading, capacity for aerial links is several orders of magnitude larger than the sea-level capacity. When ergodic capacity is computed for the fading scenarios, it is shown that the impact of fading vanishes with altitude. Sea-level ergodic capacity is increased by an order of magnitude for drone-to-drone communications, providing several Tbps at 10 m range, while 10s of Tbps is achievable among jet planes and UAVs, and several 100s of Tbps is possible for satellites/cubesats at 1 km under fading, suggesting that THz band is a promising alternative for aerial communications.