In this article, we introduce a new metric for driving the serving cell selection process of a swarm of cellular connected unmanned aerial vehicles (CCUAVs) located on aerial highways when served by a massive multiple input multiple output (mMIMO) terrestrial network. Selecting the optimal serving cell from several suitable candidates is not straightforward. By solely relying on the traditional cell selection metric, based on reference signal received power (RSRP), it is possible to result in a scenario in which the serving cell can not multiplex an appropriate number of CCUAVs due to the high correlation in the line of sight (LoS) channels. To overcome such issue, in this work, we introduce a new cell selection metric to capture not only signal strength, but also spatial multiplexing capabilities. The proposed metric highly depends on the relative position between the aerial highways and the antennas of the base station. The numerical analysis indicates that the integration of the proposed new metric allows to have a better signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) performance on the aerial highways, resulting in a more reliable cellular connection for CCUAVs.

翻译：本文针对大规模多输入多输出（mMIMO）地面网络为位于空中高速公路上的蜂窝连接无人机（CCUAVs）群提供服务的情境，提出了一种用于驱动服务小区选择过程的新度量。从多个候选小区中优化选择服务小区并非易事。若仅依赖基于参考信号接收功率（RSRP）的传统小区选择度量，可能导致服务小区因视距（LoS）信道高度相关性而无法为适当数量的CCUAVs提供多路复用。为克服该问题，本文引入了一种新型小区选择度量，该度量不仅捕获信号强度，还兼顾空间多路复用能力。所提度量高度依赖于空中高速公路与基站天线之间的相对位置。数值分析表明，集成该新度量能够提升空中高速公路上的信号与干扰加噪声比（SINR）性能，从而为CCUAVs提供更可靠的蜂窝连接。