The Skyline Process: Quantifying Sky Visibility in 3D Urban Environments

Abstract: Non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) are considered a promising technology for seamless, universal communication in the 6G era. However, signals from NTN elements to ground users are often blocked by high-rise buildings in dense urban environments. To quantify this blocking effect, in this paper, we propose a novel analytical framework by modeling the location of buildings as a 3D skyline process based on stochastic geometry and we derive closed-form expressions for the distribution of the blockage elevation angles. Furthermore, we extend our analysis to include spatially correlated blockage effects and analyze the spectral properties of the Skyline process using power spectral density (PSD) and autocorrelation function (ACF). Based on these theoretical findings, we present numerical results that provide insights into the design of LEO satellite networks by computing the mean number of visible satellites and the outage probability. We provide a decorrelation angle that serves as a useful threshold for obtaining the satellite diversity gain. These findings provide first analytical steps toward designing and user connection strategies to NTNs in urban environments.