In this paper, we propose a three-dimensional (3D) multi-input multi-output (MIMO) channel model for air-to-ground (A2G) communications in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) environments, where the UAV transmitter and ground receiver are in motion in the air and on the ground, respectively. A novel angular estimation algorithm is proposed to estimate the real-time azimuth angle of departure (AAoD), elevation angle of departure (EAoD), azimuth angle of arrival (AAoA), and elevation angle of arrival (EAoA) based on the non-stationary nature of the channel model. In the model, we investigate the time-varying spatial cross-correlation functions (CCFs) and temporal auto-correlation functions (ACFs) with respect to the different moving directions and velocities of the UAV transmitter and ground receiver. Furthermore, we derive and study the Doppler power spectral densities (PSDs) and power delay profiles (PDPs) of the proposed channel model. Numerical results show that characteristics of the proposed channel model are very close to those of practical measurements, which provide a new and practical approach to evaluate the performance of next generation UAV-MIMO communication systems.

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications exploiting millimeter wave (mmWave) can satisfy the increasing data rate demands for future wireless networks owing to the line-of-sight (LoS) dominated transmission and flexibility. In reality, the LoS link can be easily and severely blocked due to poor propagation environments such as tall buildings or trees. To this end, we introduce a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), which passively reflects signals with programmable reflection coefficients, between the transceivers to enhance the communication quality. Specifically, in this paper we generalize a three-dimensional (3D) non-stationary wideband end-to-end channel model for RIS auxiliary UAV-to-ground mmWave multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems. By modeling the RIS as a virtual cluster, we study the power delivering capability of RIS as well as the fading characteristic of the proposed channel model. Important channel statistical properties are derived and thoroughly investigated, and the impact of RIS reflection phase configurations on these statistical properties is studied, which provides guidelines for the practical system design. The agreement between theoretical and simulated as well as measurement results validate the effectiveness of the proposed channel model.

This paper presents a three-dimensional (3D) vehicle massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna array model for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication environments. A spherical wavefront is assumed in the proposed model instead of the plane wavefront assumption used in the conventional MIMO channel model. Using the proposed V2V channel model, we first derive the closed-form expressions for the joint and marginal probability density functions (PDFs) of the angle of departure (AoD) at the transmitter and angle of arrival (AoA) at the receiver in the azimuth and elevation planes. We additionally analyze the time and frequency cross-correlation functions for different propagation paths. In the proposed model, we derive the expression of the Doppler spectrum due to the relative motion between the mobile transmitter (MT) and mobile receiver (MR). The results show that the proposed 3D channel model is in close agreement with previously reported results, thereby validating the generalization of the proposed model.

In this paper, we present a three-dimensional (3D) non-wide-sense stationary (non-WSS) wideband geometry-based channel model for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication environments. We introduce a two-cylinder model to describe moving vehicles as well as multiple confocal semi-ellipsoid models to depict stationary roadside scenarios. The received signal is constructed as a sum of the line-of-sight (LoS), single-, and double-bounced rays with different energies. Accordingly, the proposed channel model is sufficient for depicting a wide variety of V2V environments, such as macro-, micro-, and picocells. The relative movement between the mobile transmitter (MT) and mobile receiver (MR) results in time-variant geometric statistics that make our channel model non-stationary. Using this channel model, the proposed channel statistics, i.e., the time-variant space correlation functions (CFs), frequency CFs, and corresponding Doppler power spectral density (PSD), were studied for different relative moving time instants. The numerical results demonstrate that the proposed 3D non-WSS wideband channel model is practical for characterizing real V2V channels.

Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS), which is composed of a large number of low-cost passive elements, has the ability to reflect the incident signal independently with an adjustable phase and amplitude shifts, has been regarded as a key and emerging technology for achieving the cost-effectively spectrum and addressing energy issues in the next generation of wireless networks. In this paper, we propose a general wideband non-stationary channel model for IRS-assisted multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication scenarios, which aims at capturing the underlying propagation characteristics of IRS-assisted communication systems. By properly adjusting the key system parameters, the proposed channel model can be used to describe various IRS-assisted communication scenarios. Furthermore, we separate the channel between the mobile transmitter (MT) and mobile receiver (MR) into the subchannel between the MT and IRS, the subchannel between the IRS and MR, and the subchannel between the MT and MR. The physical properties of each subchannel are investigated accordingly; then, we develop an equivalent channel model to study the key characteristics of the proposed IRS-assisted channel model, such as the time-varying spatial-temporal (ST) cross-correlation functions (CCFs), temporal auto-correlation functions (ACFs), and frequency CCFs. Finally, numerical results demonstrate that the proposed channel model is practical for describing the IRS-assisted MIMO wireless communication scenarios.

Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) consisting of massive passive elements is a promising technology to save the hardware cost and energy consumption, but with a challenging channel estimation of IRS transmission links. In this letter, a low-complexity channel estimation method is first proposed for IRS-enhanced multi-user massive multiple-input and multiple-output systems, which can attain the separate channel state information (CSI) of the cascaded link. The acquisition of the separate CSI contributes to the flexibility of channel estimations for the multi-user case with user mobility. The proposed channel estimation consists of direction-of-arrival and path gain estimations, which are implemented by using the limited radio frequency chains and pilots, respectively. Besides, the computational complexity is analyzed for the proposed and existing methods for comparison. Numerical results show that the proposed method can achieve accurate channel estimation with a low complexity.