Performance analysis of UAV-enabled data gathering for IoT sensor network based on backscatter communication over correlated Nakagami-m fading channels

This paper presents a unified theoretical framework to investigate the performance of an integrated unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-backscatter communication (BackComm) system for internet of things (IoT) sensor network applications. In this system, UAV can work as a carrier emitter and data collector to/from a group of passive sensor nodes, whose operation is based on the principle of backscattering technology. Exact and asymptotic mathematical equations are obtained to describe the system performance, such as outage probability, effective capacity, and average BER over a correlated Nakagami-m fading channel, assuming that forward and backscatter links are correlated. In addition, an optimal data collection location for the UAV is also explored by decreasing the euclidean distance between the UAV and the sensor nodes. The numerically simulated results show that the impact of channel correlation degrades the system performance significantly, which can be improved when the fading parameter m increases. Besides, by carefully selecting the position of the UAV, we can further enhance the overall system performance.