The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is growing rapidly, for an expanding variety of applications. These UAVs range in size from a few centimeters to the size of passenger jet aircraft, and will fly a large assortment of missions that take them from the stratosphere to residential neighborhoods. Control and communications must hence be extremely reliable. In this paper we summarize some key characteristics of UAV communications, describe fundamentals and challenges for reliable UAV communications, some current efforts in the area, and provide a framework for analysis and modeling of a vital component in any UAV communication system: the air-ground channel. Features of this channel are discussed, with example references to the literature. Suggestions for future work in air-ground channel modeling are provided. The conference presentation of this work will include example results.
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