arXiv subjects

Wahab Khawaja

Publications and source records attributed to Wahab Khawaja.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Adaptive 5G Resource Allocation for Multistatic ISAC-Based UAV Detection and Tracking

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) enable numerous commercial and public-safety applications, yet they also create security risks near critical infrastructure, transportation hubs, and restricted airspace. While integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) can leverage existing wireless networks for UAV surveillance, practical deployment must address competition between sensing and communication demands, as well as the challenges associated with tracking highly maneuverable UAVs with low radar cross section (RCS). This paper investigates adaptive multistatic ISAC for load-aware UAV detection and tracking in 5G wireless networks. A shared-resource framework is developed to quantify how sensing waveform length, sensing transmission rate, and beam allocation affect communication throughput in a 5G new radio (NR) system. Detection performance is analyzed using Zadoff-Chu (ZC) sensing waveforms, while tracking continuity is evaluated through an M-of-N detection model. To improve robustness under congestion, software-defined sensor (SDS) nodes exploit external signals of opportunity (SoO) to provide supplemental passive sensing opportunities when network resources become limited. Results show that adaptive sensing policies outperform fixed sensing reservations by preserving throughput under dynamic load while maintaining useful sensing capability. Under heavy congestion, SDS assistance substantially reduces tracking outage in the simulated scenarios. Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) analysis demonstrates that multistatic sensing geometries improve localization accuracy and provide more uniform spatial coverage than monostatic sensing alone. These results highlight coordinated adaptive sensing and distributed multistatic support as a practical path toward resilient UAV surveillance in future wireless networks.

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arXiv2026

Improvement of DVB-S2/S2X Performance Using External Synchronization

Digital Video Broadcasting Satellite, Second Generation and its extension DVBS2X are widely used in modern satellite communications, where synchronization relies on physical layer headers, pilot symbols, and optional superframe structures but lacks defined implementation methods. This work explores the use of external synchronization to enhance DVBS2 performance by using GPS disciplined oscillators, and a hardware software in the loop satellite channel model emulating Low Earth Orbit propagation. We evaluate scenarios with and without Doppler shifts and radio frequency interference, comparing synchronized and unsynchronized cases. Results show that external synchronization significantly improves bit error rate, frame error rate, and signal-to-noise ratio, subsequently reducing the frames required for reliable synchronization and enabling higher throughput in future satellite communication systems.

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arXiv2025

Propagation Channel Modeling for LEO Satellite Missions Using Ray-Tracing Simulations

This work presents a high-resolution, ray-tracing-based channel modeling for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite-to-ground links in a suburban environment at X-band. Using simulations conducted in Wireless InSite, we develop a parametric channel model that characterizes both large- and small-scale fading effects across different satellite elevation angles. Large-scale fading incorporates attenuation due to terrain-induced shadowing and dynamic environmental factors such as weather conditions, and is compared with 3GPP NTN channel model. Additionally, we quantify link degradation resulting from ground station (GS) antenna misalignment, considering both fixed single-element and electronically steerable phased-array antennas. Small-scale fading is modeled by fitting a shadowed and non-shadowed Rician distribution to the fading statistics at various satellite elevations. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to propose a comprehensive elevation-aware channel model for satellite-to-ground propagation at X-band, integrating ray-traced environmental dynamics, elevation-dependent fading, and phased-array beam misalignment effects.

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arXiv2025

Predicting Lifespan of Ground-to-Air Multipath Components in mmWave UAV Channels

In mobile ground-to-air (GA) propagation channels, the birth and death of multipath components (MPCs) are frequently observed, and the wide-sense stationary uncorrelated scattering (WSSUS) assumption does not always hold. Several methods exist for tracking the birth and death of MPCs, however, to the best of knowledge of authors, there is no existing literature that addresses the prediction of the lifespan of the MPCs in nonWSSUS GA propagation channels. In this work, we consider the GA channel as non-WSSUS and individual MPCs across receiver positions are represented as time series based on the Euclidean distance between channel parameters of the MPCs. These time series representations, referred to as path bins, are analyzed using a semi-Markov chain model. The channel parameter variations and dependencies between path bins are used to predict the lifespan of path bins using weighted sum method, machine learning classifiers, and deep neural networks. For comparison, the birth and death of path bins are also modeled using a Poisson distribution and a Markov chain. Simulation results demonstrate that deep neural networks offer highly accurate predictions for the lifespan (including death) of MPC path bins in the considered GA propagation scenario.

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arXiv2025

A Survey on Detection, Classification, and Tracking of UAVs using Radar and Communications Systems

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for a variety of commercial, civilian, and defense applications has increased many folds in recent years. While UAVs are expected to transform future air operations, there are instances where they can be used for malicious purposes. In this context, the detection, classification, and tracking (DCT) of UAVs (DCT-U) for safety and surveillance of national air space is a challenging task when compared to DCT of manned aerial vehicles. In this survey, we discuss the threats and challenges from malicious UAVs and we subsequently study three radio frequency (RF)-based systems for DCT-U. These RF-based systems include radars, communication systems, and RF analyzers. Radar systems are further divided into conventional and modern radar systems, while communication systems can be used for joint communications and sensing (JC&S) in active mode and act as a source of illumination to passive radars for DCT-U. The limitations of the three RF-based systems are also provided. The survey briefly discusses non-RF systems for DCT-U and their limitations. Future directions based on the lessons learned are provided at the end of the survey.

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arXiv2023

Propagation Measurements and Coverage Analysis for mmWave and Sub-THz Frequency Bands with Transparent Reflectors

The emerging 5G and future 6G technologies are envisioned to provide higher bandwidths and coverage using millimeter wave (mmWave) and sub-Terahertz (THz) frequency bands. The growing demand for higher data rates using these bands can be addressed by overcoming high path loss, especially for non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios. In this work, we investigate the use of passive transparent reflectors to improve signal coverage in an NLOS indoor scenario. Measurements are conducted to characterize the maximum reflectivity property of the transparent reflector using channel sounder equipment from NI. Flat and curved reflectors, each with a size of 16 inches by 16 inches, are used to study coverage improvements with different reflector shapes and orientations. The measurement results using passive metallic reflectors are also compared with the ray-tracing-based simulations, to further corroborate our inferences. The analysis reveals that the transparent reflector outperforms the metal reflector and increases the radio propagation coverage in all three frequencies of interest: 28~GHz, 39~GHz, and 120~GHz. Using transparent reflectors, there is an increase in peak received power that is greater than 5~dB for certain scenarios compared to metallic reflectors when used in flat mode, and greater than 3~dB when used in curved (convex) mode.

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arXiv2022

A Survey on Detection, Tracking, and Classification of Aerial Threats using Radars and Communications Systems

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for different applications has increased many folds in recent years. The UAVs are expected to change the future air operations. However, there are instances where the UAVs can be used for malicious purposes. The detection, tracking, and classification of UAVs is challenging compared to manned aerial vehicles (MAVs) mainly due to small size, complex shapes, and ability to fly close to the terrain and in autonomous flight patterns in swarms. In this survey, we will discuss current and future aerial threats, and provide an overview of radar systems to counter such threats. We also study the performance parameters of radar systems for the detection, tracking, and classification of UAVs compared to MAVs. In addition to dedicated radar systems, we review the use of joint communication-radar (JCR) systems, as well as passive monitoring of changes in the common communication signals, e.g., FM, LTE, and any transmissions that may radiate from a UAV, for the detection, tracking, and classification of UAVs are provided. Finally, limitations of radar systems and comparison with other techniques that do not rely on radars for detection, tracking, and classification of aerial threats are provided.

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arXiv2022

Indoor Propagation Measurements with Sekisui Transparent Reflectors at 28/39/120/144 GHz

One of the critical challenges of operating with the terahertz or millimeter-wave wireless networks is the necessity of at least a strong non-line-of-sight (NLoS) reflected path to form a stable link. Recent studies have shown that an economical way of enhancing/improving these NLoS links is by using passive metallic reflectors that provide strong reflections. However, despite its inherent radio advantage, metals can dramatically influence the landscape's appearance - especially the indoor environment. A conceptual view of escaping this is by using transparent reflectors. In this work, for the very first time, we evaluate the wireless propagation characteristics of passive transparent reflectors in an indoor environment at 28 GHz, 39 GHz, 120 GHz, and 144 GHz bands. In particular, we investigate the penetration loss and the reflection characteristics at different frequencies and compare them against the other common indoor materials such as ceiling tile, clear glass, drywall, plywood, and metal. The measurement results suggest that the transparent reflector, apart from an obvious advantage of transparency, has a higher penetration loss than the common indoor materials (excluding metal) and performs similarly to metal in terms of reflection. Our experimental results directly translate to better reflection performance and preserving the radio waves within the environment than common indoor materials, with potential applications in controlled wireless communication.

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arXiv2021

Doors in the Sky: Detection, Localization and Classification of Aerial Vehicles using Laser Mesh

The stealth technology and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are expected to dominate current and future aerial warfare. The radar systems at their maximum operating ranges, however, are not always able to detect stealth and small UAVs mainly due to their small radar cross-sections and/or low altitudes. In this paper, a novel technique as an alternative to radar technology is proposed. The proposed approach is based on creating a mesh structure of laser beams initiated from aerial platforms towards the ground. The laser mesh acts as a virtual net in the sky. Any aerial vehicle disrupting the path of the laser beams are detected and subsequently localized and tracked. As an additional feature, steering of the beams can be used for increased coverage and improved localization and classification performance. A database of different types of aerial vehicles is created artificially based on Gaussian distributions. The database is used to develop several machine learning (ML) models using different algorithms to classify a target. Overall, we demonstrated through simulations that our proposed model achieves simultaneous detection, classification, localization, and tracking of a target.

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arXiv2021

Channel Prediction for mmWave Ground-to-Air Propagation under Blockage

Ground-to-air (GA) communication using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has gained popularity in recent years and is expected to be part of 5G networks and beyond. However, the GA links are susceptible to frequent blockages at millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies. During a link blockage, the channel information cannot be obtained reliably. In this work, we provide a novel method of channel prediction during the GA link blockage at 28 GHz. In our approach, the multipath components (MPCs) along a UAV flight trajectory are arranged into independent path bins based on the minimum Euclidean distance among the channel parameters of the MPCs. After the arrangement, the channel parameters of the MPCs in individual path bins are forecasted during the blockage. An autoregressive model is used for forecasting. The results obtained from ray tracing simulations indicate a close match between the actual and the predicted mmWave channel.

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arXiv2020

Multiple Ray Received Power Modeling for mmWave Indoor and Outdoor Scenarios

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequency bands are expected to be used for future 5G networks due to the availability of large unused spectrum. However, the attenuation at mmWave frequencies is high. To resolve this issue, the utilization of high gain antennas and beamforming mechanisms are widely investigated in the literature. In this work, we considered mmWave end-to-end propagation modeled by individual ray sources, and explored the effects of the number of rays in the model and radiation patterns of the deployed antennas on the received power. It is shown that taking the dominant two rays is sufficient to model the channel for outdoor open areas as opposed to the indoor corridor which needs five dominant rays to have a good fit for the measurement and simulation results. It is observed that the radiation pattern of the antenna affects the slope of the path loss. Multi-path components increase the received power, thus, for indoor corridor scenarios, path loss according to the link distance is smaller for lower gain antennas due to increased reception of reflected components. For an outdoor open area, the slope of the path loss is found to be very close to that of the free space.

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arXiv2019

Correction of Channel Sounding Clock Drift and Antenna Rotation Effects for mmWave Angular Profile Measurements

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands will be used for the fifth generation communication systems to support high data rates. For the proper characterization of the mmWave propagation channel, it is essential to measure the power angular-delay profile (PADP) of the channel which includes angle-of-departure (AoD) and angle-of-arrival (AoA) of the multipath components (MPCs). In this paper, we first describe in detail our 28 GHz channel sounder where directional horn antennas are placed on rotating gimbals. Then, for this specific sounder class, we describe and address the following two problems in extracting the MPCs from the measurements: 1) For the channel measurements at large distances between the transmitter (TX) and the receiver (RX), it is not possible to generate the triggering signal for the TX and the RX using a single clock (SICL). This necessitates the use of separate clocks (SECLs) which introduces a random timing drift between the clocks. 2) As the positions of the antennas change during the scanning process, total distance traveled by the same MPC differs at each measurement. These two errors together cause missing some of the MPCs and detecting MPCs that do not exist in reality. We propose an algorithm to correct the clock drift and the errors in the MPC delays due to the rotation of the antennas. We compare the MPCs from the SICL measurement and the corrected SECL measurements using a Hungarian algorithm based MPC matching method. We show that the percentage of the matched MPCs increases from 28.36% to 74.13% after the correction process.

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arXiv2019

Coverage Enhancement for NLOS mmWave Links Using Passive Reflectors

The future 5G networks are expected to use millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency bands to take advantage of large unused spectrum. However, due to the high path loss at mmWave frequencies, coverage of mmWave signals can get severely reduced, especially for non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios as mmWave signals are severely attenuated when going through obstructions. In this work, we study the use of passive metallic reflectors of different shapes/sizes to improve 28 GHz mmWave signal coverage for both indoor and outdoor NLOS scenarios. We quantify the gains that can be achieved in the link quality with metallic reflectors using measurements, analytical expressions, and ray tracing simulations. In particular, we provide an analytical model for the end-to-end received power in an NLOS scenario using reflectors of different shapes and sizes. For a given size of the flat metallic sheet reflector approaching to the size of incident plane waves, we show that the reflected received power for the NLOS link is same as line-of-sight (LOS)free space received power of the same link distance. Extensive results are provided to study impact of environmental features and reflector characteristics on NLOS link quality.

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arXiv2018

Impact of 3D UWB Antenna Radiation Pattern on Air-to-Ground Drone Connectivity

Three dimensional (3D) radiation pattern of an antenna mounted at a drone can significantly influence the air-to-ground (A2G) link quality. Even when a drone transmitter is very close to a ground receiver, if the antenna orientations are not aligned properly, a significant degradation can be observed in the received signal power at the receiver. To characterize such effects for a doughnut-shaped antenna radiation pattern, using an ultra-wideband (UWB) transmitter at the drone and a UWB receiver at the ground, we carry out A2G channel measurements to capture the link quality at the ground receiver for various link distances, drone heights, and antenna orientations. We develop a simple analytical model to approximate the influence of 3D antenna patterns on the received signal strength (RSS), which show reasonable agreement with measurements despite the simplicity of the model and the complicated 3D radiation from the UWB antennas. We also explore how the signal strength can be improved when multiple antennas with different orientations are utilized at transmitter/receiver.

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arXiv2018

UWB Air-to-Ground Propagation Channel Measurements and Modeling using UAVs

This paper presents an experimental study of the air-to-ground (AG) propagation channel through ultrawideband(UWB) measurements in an open area using unmanned-aerial-vehicles (UAVs). Measurements were performed using UWB radios operating at a frequency range of 3.1 GHz - 4.8 GHz and UWB planar elliptical dipole antennas having an omni-directional pattern in the azimuth plane and typical donut shaped pattern in the elevation plane. Three scenarios were considered for the channel measurements: (i)two receivers (RXs) at different heights above the ground and placed close to each other in line-of-sight (LOS) with the transmitter (TX) on the UAV and the UAV is hovering; (ii) RXs are in obstructed line-of-sight (OLOS) with the UAV TX due to foliage, and the UAV is hovering; and, (iii) UAV is moving in a circular path. Different horizontal and vertical distances between the RXs and TX were used in the measurements. In addition, two different antenna orientations were used on the UAV antennas (vertical and horizontal) to analyze the effects of antenna radiation patterns on the UWB AG propagation. From the empirical results, it was observed that the received power depends mainly on the antenna radiation pattern in the elevation plane when the antennas are oriented in the same direction, as expected for these omni-azimuth antennas. Moreover, the overall antenna gain at the TX and RX can be approximated using trigonometric functions of the elevation angle.

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arXiv2018

Indoor Coverage Enhancement for mmWave Systems with Passive Reflectors: Measurements and Ray Tracing Simulations

The future 5G networks are expected to use millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency bands, mainly due to the availability of large unused spectrum. However, due to high path loss at mmWave frequencies, coverage of mmWave signals can get severely reduced, especially for non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios. In this work, we study the use of passive metallic reflectors of different shapes/sizes to improve mmWave signal coverage for indoor NLOS scenarios. Software defined radio based mmWave transceiver platforms operating at 28 GHz are used for indoor measurements. Subsequently, ray tracing (RT) simulations are carried out in a similar environment using Remcom Wireless InSite software. The cumulative distribution functions of the received signal strength for the RT simulations in the area of interest are observed to be reasonably close with those obtained from the measurements. Our measurements and RT simulations both show that there is significant (on the order of 20 dB) power gain obtained with square metallic reflectors, when compared to no reflector scenario for an indoor corridor. We also observe that overall mmWave signal coverage can be improved utilizing reflectors of different shapes and orientations.

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arXiv2018

Coverage Enhancement for mmWave Communications using Passive Reflectors

Millimeter wave (mmWave) technology is expected to dominate the future 5G networks mainly due to large spectrum available at these frequencies. However, coverage deteriorates significantly at mmWave frequencies due to higher path loss, especially for the non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios. In this work, we explore the use of passive reflectors for improving mmWave signal coverage in NLOS indoor areas. Measurements are carried out using the PXI-based mmWave transceiver platforms from National Instruments operating at 28 GHz, and the results are compared with the outcomes of ray tracing (RT) simulations in a similar environment. For both the measurements and RT simulations, different shapes of metallic passive reflectors are used to observe the coverage (signal strength) statistics on a receiver grid in an NLOS area. For a square metallic sheet reflector of size 24 by 24 in and 33 by 33 in , we observe a significant increase in the received power in the NLOS region, with a median gain of 20 dB when compared to no reflector case. The cylindrical reflector shows more uniform coverage on the receiver grid as compared to flat reflectors that are more directional.

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arXiv2018

Temporal and Spatial Characteristics of mmWave Propagation Channels for UAVs

Unmanned aerial vehicles~(UAVs) are envisioned to be an integral part of future 5G communication systems. The agile nature of UAVs for serving users at different locations can help to dynamically optimize coverage and quality-of-service (QoS) in future networks. %However, there is very limited literature available for mmWave communications using UAVs. In this work, we explore the small scale temporal and spatial characteristics of mmWave air-to-ground~(AG) line-of-sight~(LOS) propagation channels at $28$~GHz in different environmental scenarios: dense-urban, suburban, rural, and over sea using omni-directional antennas employing Wireless InSite ray tracing software. We classify the received multipath components~(MPCs) into persistent and non-persistent components. The small scale temporal and spatial characteristics of the AG propagation channel are found to be dependent on the scatterer properties: number, distribution, and geometry. Additionally, clustering of MPCs in the time and spatial domain for different environments is found to be dependent on the scatterer properties and receiver sensitivity. When the height of the UAV is comparable to the height of the scatterers, we observe large temporal and angular spreads.

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