Modeling and Analysis of UAV-Assisted Mobile

Network with Imperfect Beam Alignment

Mohamed Amine Ouamri, Reem Alkanhel, Cedric Gueguen, Manal Abdullah
Alohali, Sherif S. M. Ghoneim

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Mohamed Amine Ouamri, Reem Alkanhel, Cedric Gueguen, Manal Abdullah Alohali, Sherif S. M.
Ghoneim. Modeling and Analysis of UAV-Assisted Mobile Network with Imperfect Beam Alignment.
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Modeling and Analysis of UAV-Assisted Mobile Network with Imperfect Beam

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Computers, Materials & Continua Tech Science Press
DOI: 10.32604/cmc.2022.031450
Article

Modeling and Analysis of UAV-Assisted Mobile Network with Imperfect Beam

Alignment
Mohamed Amine Ouamri1,2 , Reem Alkanhel3, *, Cedric Gueguen1 , Manal Abdullah Alohali4 and
Sherif S. M. Ghoneim5

1
University of Rennes 1/ADOPNET team at IRISA laboratory, Rennes, 35000, France
2
Faculté de Technologie, Laboratoire d’Informatique Médicale (LIMED), Université de Bejaia, Bejaia, 06000, Algérie
3
Department of Information Technology, College of Computer and Information Sciences, Princess Nourah bint
Abdulrahman University, P.O.Box 84428, Riyadh, 11671, Saudi Arabia
4
Department of Information Systems, College of Computer and Information Sciences, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman
University, P.O.Box 84428, Riyadh, 11671, Saudi Arabia
5
Electrical engineering department, College of Engineering, Taif University P. O. Box 11099, Taif, 21944, Saudi Arabia
*Corresponding Author: Reem Alkanhel. Email: [email protected]
Received: 18 April 2022; Accepted: 07 June 2022

Abstract: With the rapid development of emerging 5G and beyond (B5G),

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly important to improve the
performance of dense cellular networks. As a conventional metric, coverage
probability has been widely studied in communication systems due to the
increasing density of users and complexity of the heterogeneous environment.
In recent years, stochastic geometry has attracted more attention as a math-
ematical tool for modeling mobile network systems. In this paper, an ana-
lytical approach to the coverage probability analysis of UAV-assisted cellular
networks with imperfect beam alignment has been proposed. An assumption
was considered that all users are distributed according to Poisson Cluster
Process (PCP) around base stations, in particular, Thomas Cluster Process
(TCP). Using this model, the impact of beam alignment errors on the coverage
probability was investigated. Initially, the Probability Density Function (PDF)
of directional antenna gain between the user and its serving base station
was obtained. Then, association probability with each tier was achieved. A
tractable expression was derived for coverage probability in both Line-of-
Sight (LoS) and Non-Line-of-Sight (NLoS) condition links. Numerical results
demonstrated that at low UAVs altitude, beam alignment errors significantly
degrade coverage performance. Moreover, for a small cluster size, alignment
errors do not necessarily affect the coverage performance.

Keywords: Unmanned aerial vehicles; coverage analysis; stochastic geometry;

millimeter wave; imperfect beam alignment

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.
2 CMC, 2022

1 Introduction
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) based-cellular network has recently attracted more attention due
to its capacity to overcome some terrestrial network communication constraints [1,2]. For example,
mmWave UAVs can easily establish line-of-sight (LoS) connections to ground users [3]. Additionally,
UAV can assist terrestrial networks to prevent temporary congestion in ultra-dense places such as
stadiums. In certain applications, UAVs can be used as a relay to improve energy efficiency in cellular
networks. However, to maintain the high performance of UAVs based communication, the optimal
UAVs deployment parameters are of fundamental importance [4]. Heterogeneity between UAV and
ground base station requires an understanding of channel scenarios introduced such as the ground-
to-ground (G2G) and air-to-ground (A2G) channels. Therefore, the modeling of these channels has
received much attention in the literature [5,6]. To overcome spectral saturation, Millimeter Waves
(mmWave) are largely considered one of the keys technology for the 5G network. Nevertheless,
mmWave spectrum is susceptible to blockages and suffers from high propagation attenuation. To
address the blocking effect, Beamforming can be applied to improve the signal quality and compensate
for the additional path loss [7]. Currently, Stochastic Geometry is employed to study and analyze cel-
lular network performance, in particular the deployment of base stations (BSs) and users’ equipments
(UEs) [8,9]. Indeed, BSs and UEs locations are modeled as Poisson Cluster Process (PCP) in several
scenarios like sporting events. This distribution allows the coupling of UE and UAV locations, but also
provides accurate models according to the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).

1.1 Related Work

Several studies have recently addressed the performance analysis of UAV-assisted cellular net-
works, where different metrics were considered. For instance, authors in [10] analyzed downlink
coverage and rate of a vertical heterogeneous network in both LOS and NLOS propagation. In
this work, the authors assumed that the UAVs heights were fixed and their location distributed
forms a Poisson Point Process (PPP). In [11], the authors investigated performance analysis for two
scenarios: static UAVs and mobile UAVs. The proposed analytical framework adopts an appropriate
(A2G) channel model that incorporated LoS and non-line-of-sight (NLoS) transmissions. However,
beamforming has not been incorporated. In [12], stochastic geometry base PCP was proposed to
model the UEs locations. Additionally, the impact of path loss exponent and UAV density on
coverage probability was achieved. Moreover, PCPs were also introduced to the model device-to-
device network in [13]. In this work, a special case of PCP namely the Matern cluster process (MCP)
was used. The Cumulative Density Function (CDF) of distance distribution between UE and the
adjacent/serving base station was derived. Authors in [14] proposed a unified spatial framework for
UAV aided mmWave. More specifically, MCP and (TCP) were introduced to model and represent
the BSs locations. A 3D blockage process and a 3D up tilted antenna model were introduced to
characterize the impact of UAVs altitudes and positions. The signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio
(SINR) coverage and outage probabilities were studied as the network performance metric in [15] and
[16] respectively. First, in [15], the exact expression of coverage probability, which includes the effect
of base stations (BSs) height, antenna pattern, and UAVs altitudes, was derived. Then, in [16], the
outage probability and ergodic rate of Multi Input Multi Output (MIMO) were evaluated, when the
transmit power of interference sources was proportional. Hou et al. [17] proposed a tractable approach
to analyze coverage probability. The authors considered a scenario where the UAVs are placed between
3D obstacles. A more general study investigated the coverage optimization using stochastic geometry
where the UEs were modeled as TCP [18]. This study aims to obtain an optimal UAVs height with
maximum coverage probability. On the other extreme, in urban environments, it is necessary to keep
CMC, 2022 3

UAVs at low altitudes to reduce path loss. However, at this height, alignment errors are significant due
to environmental obstacles such as large buildings and shadow zones.

1.2 Contributions
As discussed above, stochastic geometry is a promising power tool to provide autonomous and
effective analysis for UAV-assisted wireless network performance. To address the coverage analysis
challenges, considering the limitations of the existing models such as different heights of the drones,
and beams alignment errors, The coverage probability while taking into account the two different
challenges should be studied. First, although coverage analysis has been well studied in the literature,
few articles have dealt with the problem when drones are positioned at different altitudes. In reality,
drones cannot be positioned at identical heights depending on the propagation environment and
building density. On the other hand, 5G wireless networks are very dense, requiring the involvement
of robust technology to improve their coverage and capacity. Therefore, beamforming is applied in
several UAV scenarios to enhance coverage, but there are still errors in the beam alignment, which
degrades the association of users with their Base Station and as a result, poor coverage is experienced.
Motivated by these considerations, in this paper, a detailed performance analysis of a UAV-assisted
cellular network over the Nakagami-m channel with Imperfect beam alignment was presented. The
main contribution of this document can be summarized as follows:
• An analytical framework to analyze the coverage probability of UAV-assisted mobile networks
under clustered users was suggested. Compared to [13], all UAV were located at different heights.
Moreover, the system performance should be analyzed exactly when the UAVs were located at
certain heights with imperfect beam alignment. Based on [19], an exact expression of coverage
probability for typical UEs located at origin by adopting imperfect beam alignment was driven.
The path loss model is different between aerial and ground tiers in both LoS and NLoS links.
• The proposed analysis provided several useful conclusions. First, it revealed that at low UAVs
altitudes, beam alignment errors significantly degrade coverage performance. Second, our
investigation showed that there was an optimal value for the imperfect beam alignment, which
should not be exceeded to improve coverage probability
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, the system and channel model
was introduced. Section 3, association probability was derived. In Section 4, the exact expression of
Coverage probability was obtained. In Section 5, some numerical results were presented to confirm
the accuracy of the model. Finally, the conclusion and perspectives were presented in Section 6.

2 System Model
The system model illustrated in Fig. 1 was considered. The UAVs are deployed at different heights
Hz according to the Homogeneous Poisson Point Process (HPPP) UAV with density λUAV > 0. Ground
Bases Stations (GBSs) are spatially distributed according to HPPP GBS with density λGBS > 0. Each
user was supposed to be clustered around the base station symmetrically independently and identically
distributed according to a Gaussian distribution with zero mean and variance σ 2 [20]. Without any
loss of generality, all BSs transmit at the same power transmission. Moreover, the thermal noise was
negligible compared to the interferences. In this study, typical UE was associated with a single BS i.e.,
UAV or GBS, which provided the maximum received signal power.
Q1
4 CMC, 2022

Figure 1: System model: UAV assisted cellular network in both LoS and NLoS link

Table 1: Table of notations

Notation Explanation
λUAV , λGBS Density of UAV and GBS.
σ2 Gaussian distribution with zero mean and variance.
PLOS NLOS
UAV (r) , P UAV (r) LoS/NLoS probabilities functions for UAV links.
PLOS NLOS
GBS (r),P GBS (r) LoS/NLoS probability function for GBS links.
PLU (r),PLNLOS
LOS
U (r) Path loss for UAV.
α LOS , α NLOS Path loss exponents for LoS and NLoS.
ϕ LOS , ϕ NLOS Additional path loss for LoS and NLoS links.
ALOS , ANLOS Path loss at a reference distance of r = 1km.
f h (x) Normalized Gamma distribution for channel Gain.
 (m) Gamma function.
Pj , Pi Power transmission for UAV and GBS respectively.
AkUAV , AkGBS Association probabilities for UAV and GBS.
γ UAV , γ GBS SINR fir UAV and GBS respectively.
P kc,UAV , P kC,GBS Downlink coverage probabilities for UAV and GBS
P kc,TOT Total coverage probability of the network

2.1 Channel Model

To study the proposed model accurately, the LoS and NLoS links were examined separately,
as well as their probabilities of occurrence. The LoS and alos NLoS probabilities depended on the
environment propagation. Note that, for UAV-UE communication, the link probability was related
to the UAV height. In urban scenarios, the effect of blockages was considerable. However, the
probabilities functions of LoS/NLoS can be further given by [13].
For UAV-UE
1
LOS
PUAV (r) =      (1)
180 −1 Hz
1 + b exp −c tan −b
π r
CMC, 2022 5

where b and c are constants that depend on the environment. The NLoS link probability is given by
NLOS
PUAV (r) = 1 − PULOS (r) (2)

For GBS-UE
LOS
PGBS (r) = e−γ r (3)
where γ is the blockage parameter.

2.2 Path Loss

In contrast to path loss model proposed in [11], our model incorporated different path loss for
each tier (i.e., UAV and GBS). For the A2G link, the path loss model was formulated as follows
α LOS
PLLOS
U (r) = ϕ LOS (r2 + Hz 2 ) 2 (4)
α NLOS
PLNLOS
U (r) = ϕ NLOS (r2 + Hz 2 ) 2 (5)
where Hz is the altitude variation of the UAVs in meters, r is the distance between UE and the
projection of UAV in the 2-D plane, ϕ LOS and ϕ NLOS are the additional path loss for LoS and NLoS
links respectively. As in our previous work [21], the G2G propagation model is given by
 LOS
PLLOS (r) = ALOS r−α
PLS (r) =
k
NLOS (6)
PLNLOS (r) = ANLOS r−α
where PLLOS (r) and PLNLOS (r) are the path loss functions for the LoS and NLoS transmission
respectively. In addition, ALOS and ANLOS represent the path loss at a reference distance of
r = 1 km, α LOS and α NLOS are the LoS and NLoS path loss exponents.

2.3 Fading
Small-scale fading is a property of radio propagation caused by the existence of reflectors and
scatterers. In fact, several versions of the transmitted signal reach the user, where each version was
distorted in terms of amplitude, phase, and angle of arrival. In our model, Nakagami-m fading was
used to model the fading channels with the shape parameter given by (NLos , 1/NLos ) and (NNLos , 1/NNLos )
for LoS and NLoS links, respectively [21]. Compared to Rayleigh fading, the Nakagami-m fading
model gives a diversity order of m. Another reason, why was the Nakagami-m model suggested? His
mathematical form is more analytically tractable to analyze in NLoS environment. Then, the channel
gain hk is normalized Gamma distribution given by [16].
mm m−1 −mx
fh (x) = x e x>0 (7)
(m)
∞
where  (m) = 0 xm e−x dx is the Gamma function.

2.4 Imperfect Beam Alignment

To improve communication between the base station and user, directional beamforming [22] was
used to focus a signal in a specific UE direction. However, UE and its serving base station adjusted
the orientation of their antennas after estimating the angles of arrival (AoAs) and angles of departure
(AoDs). The objective of this approach is to maximize directivity gain. Nevertheless, due to errors
in the installation of antennas in practice, estimation errors in directivity angles could be made. For
 6 CMC, 2022

the associated BS-UE pair, the imperfect beam alignment was modeled as a truncated Gaussian
distributed variable [23] where the expression was given by

2 − t22
e 2σ
πσ
2
fδ (t) =    , t ∈ (−π, π] (8)
π π
er f √ − er f − √
2σ 2σ
where σ isthe standard
 deviation and is usually applied toindicate
 the variability of beam alignment
π π  √π2σ −t2 √
error. er f √ is the error function computed as er f √ = 2 0 e dt/ π .
2σ 2σ
⎧ ⎛  ⎞
⎪ 1.391
⎪
⎪ π − 2cos −1
⎪
⎪ ⎜ πρ ⎟
⎪
⎪ er f ⎜ √ ⎟
⎪
⎪ ⎝ ⎠
⎪
⎪ 2 2σ
⎪
⎪
R
⎪
⎪ f mR =  
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ π
⎪
⎨ erf √
2σR
⎛  ⎞ (9)
⎪
⎪ 1.391
⎪
⎪ π − 2cos −1
⎪
⎪ ⎜ πρ ⎟
⎪
⎪ ⎜
er f ⎝ √ ⎟
⎪
⎪ ⎠
⎪
⎪ 2 2σ
⎪
T
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ f mT =  
⎪
⎪ π
⎪
⎩ erf √
2σT
where σR , σT are beam alignment error standard deviations of the receiving (transmitting) antenna
array. ρ < 1/2 is the number of antenna elements. To obtain the association probability of a typical
UE with appropriate BS, it is necessary to know the distance distribution between UE and BSs in
each tier. The UE is located at a distance D from the cluster center as illustrated in Fig. 3, the density
Q2 function of the distance between UE and UAV for TCP is given by proposition 1.

Figure 2: Imperfect beam alignment

CMC, 2022 7

Figure 3: Distance separating the user from UAV and GBS

3 Users Association Approach

User association is an important step in a communication network and significantly affects
network performance. It generally depends on the radio link, the distance between the user and BSs,
and also the power transmission. Consequently, the user probability association is based on different
schemes such as minimum load or maximum distance BS, and maximum received signal power. As
mentioned above, in this work, we focus on the case where UE is connected with the BSs (UAV or
GBS) that provides maximum received signal power and can be given mathematically as
Pj Gj PLj (r)−1 ≥ Pi Gi PLi (r)−1 ∀j  = i, i ∈ GBS j ∈ UAV (10)
where Pj , Pi is the power transmission, G = mR mT is directional antenna gain and its probability
distribution can be expressed by [19] as
Proposition 1: The PDF and CDF of the distance separated UE located at distance D from the
cluster center to the nearest UAV can be expressed as:
 2   
r0 D − r0 2 r0 D
PDF : fR0 (r0 |D, σ ) = 2 exp I0 (11)
σ 2σ 2 σ2
 
D r0
CDF : FR0 (r0 |D, σ ) = 1 − Q1 , (12)
σ σ
 r   ∞ te−t2 +( Dσ )2  D 
where Q1 Dσ , σ0 = r0 2
I0 σ t dt is the Marcum Q-function. The proof follows the same steps
σ
as [24, Corollary 1]. In addition, the distance RG separating a typical UE to the nearest LOS/NLOS
GBS can be derived as
 
RG RG 2
PDF : fY (RG ) = 2 exp − 2 (13)
σ 2σ
 
RG 2
CDF : FY (RG ) = exp − 2 (14)
2σ

In the following Lemma, the probability that the UE was associated with a LOS/NLOS UAV or
GBS. This can be evaluated by assuming that the number of drones per cluster was fixed and using
the ordered statistics of the distance distribution of the cluster BSs points to the typical user located
at distance.
Q3
8 CMC, 2022

   √ 
∞ ω

AkUAV = 1 − exp −2πλUAV k

tPUAV (t) fR0 (r|D, σ )dr (15)
0 0
⎛ ⎛ ⎞α k
⎞
αk
  ⎝ Pi Gi ϕ
k
∞
⎜ Pj Gj Ak
( rj 2 +Hz 2 2 ⎠
) ⎟
AkGBS = 1 − exp ⎜
⎝−2πλGBS
k
tPGBS (t)⎟
⎠ fY (RG ) dr (16)
0 0

4 Performance Analysis
This section presented the performance analysis of the proposed system with imperfect beam
alignment. However, the metric that has been selected to be estimated was the coverage probability.

4.1 SINR Model

The analysis of this special case will provide important information about the network perfor-
mance in more general contexts. Particularly, the coverage probability can be defined as the probability
that signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio experienced by a typical user is greater than the desired
threshold τ . Mathematically, the formula is Pc,UAV
k
= P[SINRUAV > τ ] and Pc,GBS
k
= P[SINRGBS > τ ].
In our approach, the serving UAV was only interfered with by adjacent UAVs. On the other hand, the
serving GBS was interfered with by both entities (UAV and SBS). According to this assumption, the
SINR at typical UE can be expressed as
PUAV GUAV hUAV PLkUAV (r)−1
γUAV =  (17)
UAV   =UAV
PUAV  GUAV  hUAV  PLbUAV  (r) + σ 2
PGBS GGBS hGBS PLkGBS (r)−1
γGBS =  (18)
GBS  =GBS
PGBS GGBS hGBS PLbGBS (r) + IUAV + σ 2

Lemma: The probability that a typical UE is associated with UAV/GBS in both LOS and NLOS
conditions can be expressed by (15) and (16).
Proof: See Appendix A

where IUAV = UAV ∈UAV PUAV GUAV hUAV PLkUAV (r) is the interference from adjacent UAV and σ 2 represent
the variance of the additive white Gaussian noise component. The following theorem characterizes
the coverage probability when the UE is served by UAV and GBS respectively. In this theorem, we also
obtain the Laplace transform of different interference indicated above.
Theorem: For the special case of TCP, the downlink coverage probability for typical UE in both
LOS/NLOS links can be expressed by
N   
 k
Nk −μσ 2
Pc,UAV = EGUAV
k
(−1) n+1
e LIUAV  (μ) (19)
n
n=1
N   
 k
Nk −qσ 2
PC,GBS = EGGBS
k
(−1) n+1
e LIUAV (μ)LIGBS (ε) (20)
n
n=1

Proof: See Appendix B

CMC, 2022 9

4.2 Total Coverage Probability

In this subsection, after deriving the formulas for the association probabilities and conditional
coverage probabilities, now the total coverage probability will be calculated. The overall network
coverage in a UAV assisted mobile network was the sum of coverage offered by both tiers and can
be expressed as
 2

Pc,TOT =
k
Ci (21)
i=1

where Ci = Pc,ik Aki . Therefor, by substituting (19), (20), (15) and (16) we obtain the expression for the
total coverage probability as
N     ∞   √ω 
 k
N 2
Pc,TOT
k
= EGUAV (−1) n+1 k
e−μσ LIUAV  (μ) × 1 − exp −2πλUAV k
tPUAV (t)
n 0 0
n=1
N   
 k
N 2
× fR0 (r |D, σ ) dr + EGGBS (−1)n+1 k
e−qσ LIUAV (μ)LIGBS (ε)
n
n=1
 ∞   ϑ 
− exp −2πλGBS k
tPGBS (t) × fY (RG ) d (22)
0 0

 αk
Pi Gi ϕ k
 2  αk
where ϑ = Pj Gj Ak
r j + Hz 2 2

5 Simulation Results
The analytical expression for the association probability and coverage probability has been derived
in Sections 3 and 4, respectively. In this section, the coverage probability expression obtained was
validated against Monte Carlo simulations using MATLAB. Results were based on the impact of UAV
height and the imperfect beam alignment. The transmit power of SBS and UAV were 30 and 24 dBm,
respectively. For our simulation, all necessary parametric values were given in Tab. 2.

Table 2: Simulation parameters

Parameters Values
SBS and UAV density λS , λU 10−2 /m2 10−3 /m2
Carrier frequency f 28 GHz
additional and exponent path 2,3,1,1
loss α LOS , α NLOS , ϕ LOS , ϕ NLOS
SINR threshold τ −90 dBm [13]
Noise power σ 2 −174 dBm/Hz

Fig. 4 illustrated the impact of beam alignment errors on the coverage probability with different
values of UAV height. It is observed that the beam alignment error increases the coverage probability
deteriorates. Indeed, this degradation was considerable when the UAV height increased. The reason
was that when the UAV height increased the misalignment occurred with a high probability. Moreover,
10 CMC, 2022

the distance between the drone and the UE became significant, which enhanced attenuation. As can
be seen from Fig. 5, the coverage probability was significantly decreased when the cluster size was
increased. This was mainly due to the increase in path loss (enhanced distance between UAVs and
UE). It was clearly shown that for a small cluster size, alignment errors did not necessarily affect the
coverage performance and the same results as when UE and BSs were perfectly aligned. This can be
explained as when the cluster was reduced, the UE and its serving base station adjusted the orientation
of their antennas easily over a large distance. In addition, despite the estimation errors of (AoAs) and
(AoDs), when the radius of the cluster was small, the received power by the user was high, because they
were closer to the base station and the losses become minimal. To validate the coverage analysis, the
estimated results were plotted against drone density. It was obvious from the figure that the analytical
results were reasonably consistent with the simulation results. Indeed, Fig. 6 illustrated the impact of
UAV density at different values of alignment error.

Figure 4: Coverage probability as a function of alignment error with different UAV height
variation Hz

Figure 5: Coverage probability as function of cluster size with different imperfect alignment δ
CMC, 2022 11

Figure 6: Coverage probability as function of UAV density λUAV with different imperfect beam
alignment δ

It can be observed from the figure that when the UAV density increased slightly, the coverage
probability was initially improved. The reason was that the distance between UE and UAV was
reduced. Therefore, the probability of having a LOS link was high. Contrarily, increasing UAV density
significantly led to higher interference. On the other hand, increasing UAV deployment results in
increased beam alignment error. It was due to inadequate exploitation of beamforming gains, i.e.,
the base station and the user did not perfectly adjust their azimuth, main lobe, and side lobe for
each entity. In Fig. 7, coverage probability as a function of SINR with different beam alignments was
plotted. From this figure, the coverage performance of the derived analytical statement was sufficiently
accurate to evaluate the coverage probability of the system. Indeed, as the SINR threshold increases
the coverage probability decreases. It can also be seen that when the UE and its serving BS (UAV or
GBS) were note aligned perfectly, the coverage probability was significantly reduced
.

Figure 7: Coverage probability as a function of SINR threshold with perfect/imperfect beam

alignment δ
12 CMC, 2022

6 Conclusion
In this paper, the downlink coverage analysis for UAV-assisted mobile networks with imperfect
beam alignment has been investigated in both LOS and NLOS propagation. Our framework assumed
that all UAVs were deployed at different heights. Specifically, stochastic geometry-based techniques
were used to derive the exact expression of coverage probability, which can be affected by inter-cell
interference. First, the association probability and distance distribution were obtained in the case of
the Thomas cluster process. Then, based on the proposed model the coverage probability was derived
and evaluated by integrating the impact of the beam alignment error. Using numerical results, it was
shown that at low UAVs altitude, beam alignment errors significantly degraded coverage performance.
Moreover, alignment errors did not affect the coverage probability at a small cluster size. There were
many interesting questions to be addressed in the future, and some of them are listed below:
• Coverage and rate for UAV-assisted small cells by introducing inter-cell interference coordina-
tion between UAVs were analyzed.
• Analyze the performance when the UAVs are equipped with an antenna array and use the 3D
beamforming model.
• Study the performance of UAVs swarm in 3D blocking environments with cooperation methods.

Acknowledgement: The authors express their gratitude to Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman
University Researchers Supporting Project number (PNURSP2022R323), Princess Nourah bint
Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Taif University Researchers Supporting Project
Number TURSP-2020/34, Taif, Saudi Arabia.

Funding Statement: This work was supported by Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University
Researchers Supporting Project number (PNURSP2022R323), Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman
University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Taif University Researchers Supporting Project Number
TURSP-2020/34, Taif, Saudi Arabia.

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to report regarding the
present study.

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14 CMC, 2022

Appendix A.
The association probability for UAV-UE can be evaluated as
Ak
 −1

UAV
(a) = P Pj Gj PLj ,k ≥ Pi Gi PLi −1 (23)
 
Ak  2  αk Pi Gi Ak αk
UAV
(b) =P rj + Hz 2 2
> ri
Pj Gj ϕ k
 ∞  2
Ak Pi Gi Ak αk αk
UAV
(c) = 1 − P(rj >
2
ri − Hz 2 × fR0 (r |D, σ )
0 Pj Gj ϕ k
where (a) according to the definition of association probability, (b) is due to the path loss model, and
(c) follows from conditioning on the closest distance. By applying the null probability of a 2-D Poisson
process [24]:
 ∞   √ω 
AUAV = 1 −
k
exp −2πλUAV tPUAV (t) fR0 (r |D, σ ) dr
k
(24)
0 0

√  k
 2k
k
where ω = PPi GGi Aϕk ri α α − Hz 2 . The association probability for GBS-UE can be evaluated in the
j j
same way.

Appendix B.
k
PC,UA = P (γUAV > τ ) (25)
 
PUAV GUAV hUAV PLkUAV (r)−1
=P >τ
IUAV  + σ 2
 
τ PLkUAV (r)  
= P hUAV > IUAV  + σ 2
mR mT PUAV
⎡ ⎤
1−
⎢  Nk  ⎥
≈ EGUAV ⎣ τ PLk
− m mUAV
(r)
(IUAV  +σ 2 ) ⎦ (26)
EIUAV  1 − e R T UAV P

   

Nk " #
N 2
= EGUAV (−1)n+1 k
EIUAV e−μ(IUAV +σ ) (27)
n
n=1
N   
 k
N 2
k
PC,UAV = EGUAV (−1)n+1 k
e−μσ LII  (μ) (28)
n UAV
n=1

where LII  (μ) is the Laplace transform which is the relevant intermediate step of the coverage
UAV
analysis. Eq. (26) follows the Binomial theorem and the assumption that Nk is an integer [25]. Then,
αk
τ ϕ k (r2 +Hz 2 ) 2
Eq. (27) follows from the independence between the interference μ = . However, LII (μ)
PUAV mR mT UAV 
can be compute a
$ %
LII  (μ) = E e−μIUAV 
UAV
 CMC, 2022 15

  

= E exp −μ PUAV  GUAV  hUAV  PLkUAV  (r)
UAV   =UAV
  
∞ " 1− #
−2πλUAV EmR mT exp k
k
rPUAV  (r) dr
x EhUAV e−μPUAV  GUAV  hU PLUAV  (r)
⎛⎡ ⎛ ⎞ ⎤⎞
 ∞
1
= exp ⎝⎣−2πλUAV EmR mT ⎝ 1−( ⎠ rPUAV
k
 (r) dr
⎦⎠
μPUAV  GUAV  PLk
UAV  (r)
x 1+ Nk

Proof of the Laplace transform LIGBS (μ) and LIIUAV (μ) follows the same steps as LIUAV  (μ).
⎛ ⎡  Nk ⎤⎞
∞
⎜ ⎢ 1− 1
⎥⎟
LIGBS (q) = exp ⎝−2πλGBS × Em m ⎣ x 1+
qPGBS GGBS PLk  (r)
GBS ⎦⎠ (29)
R T Nk
k
rPGBS  (r) dr
⎛ ⎡  Nk ⎤⎞
∞
⎜ ⎢ 1− 1
⎥⎟
LIIUAV (μ) = exp ⎝−2πλUAV × EmR mT ⎣ x
1+
μPUAV GUAV PLk
UAV (r) ⎦⎠ (30)
Nk
k
rP UAV (r) dr

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