Characterization of link lifetime in the presence of random blocking objects

The presence of obstacles between a mobile user and the serving access point might determine frequent link blockages that could be expensive in terms of signaling caused by handovers and antenna beamforming, especially in the perspective of millimeter wave communications. In this paper, an analytical framework to characterize the statistics of the link lifetime of a moving user in the presence of random obstacles with different sizes is derived for two different mobility models. Using statistical geometry arguments, closed-forms of the cumulative distribution function and the average link lifetime are obtained as a function of the distance, user's speed and direction, obstacles' density and size. The analytical framework is validated through simulations and allows to get insights on the impact of system parameters on the link lifetime.