Optimal Altitude Selection of Aerial Base Stations to Maximize Coverage and Energy Harvesting Probabilities: A Stochastic Geometry Analysis

This paper provides radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting and coverage probability analysis using stochastic geometry in a two-hop communication network. In the first hop, terrestrial base stations (TBSs) transmit RF energy and data to the aerial base stations (ABSs) and in the second hop, ABSs forward the data to the user. Numerical results show that the energy harvesting and coverage probabilities can be maximized at almost the same altitude of the ABSs with respect to the TBSs height for low TBSs densities. However, as the density of the backhaul nodes and the energy harvesting sub-timeslot increases, energy harvesting probability improves while coverage probability monotonically decreases by increasing the ABSs height.