The Impact of Multipath Propagation on Cooperative Traffic Conflict Detection among Drones

Abstract

Drone-to-drone communications in urban airspace is likely to be severely influenced by multipath propagation due to numerous reflections off the ground surface, building, or other structures. In this contribution, we have a look at its impact on a specific application, namely the cooperative detection of traffic conflicts through the periodic exchange of beacon messages. Therefore, we propose a theoretical drone-to-drone communications channel model incorporating a ground reflection and Rician fading. Eventually, we show in simulations the influence of the Rician K-factor and the drones' conflict altitude on the probability of detecting traffic conflicts. Especially, low K-factors increase the probability of missing a detection up to 10e7-times compared to free-space propagation.