Performance Evaluation and Optimization of Network Parameters for UAV Enabled Dual Hop Wireless Communication System

This investigation delves into the operational performance of a dual‐hop wireless communication system facilitated by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operating as a decode‐and‐forward (DF) relay. In scenarios where direct ground‐based communication between a base station and mobile users is hindered by environmental or structural barriers, the UAV provides an aerial link. The first hop, from the base station to the UAV, is modeled using the generalized ‐‐ fading distribution to capture a wide range of channel conditions. The second hop, from the UAV to the selected user, employs opportunistic user scheduling and experiences Rayleigh fading. The study presents exact closed‐form results for key performance parameters like outage probability and average symbol error rate. To better understand system behavior at high signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) regimes, we also perform an asymptotic outage analysis, from which we extract the system's diversity order and coding gain. Additionally, we examine the optimal UAV placement strategy that minimizes the asymptotic outage probability, thereby improving system reliability and efficiency.