Propagation characterization and analysis for 5g mmwave through field experiments

• Main Authors: Qamar, Faizan, Hindia, Mhd Nour, Abd Rahman, Tharek, Hassan, Rosilah, Dimyati, Kaharudin, Nguyen, Quang Ngoc
• Format: Article
• Published: Tech Science Press 2021
• Subjects: T Technology (General); TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/28453/

The 5G network has been intensively investigated to realize the ongoing early deployment stage as an effort to match the exponential growth of the number of connected users and their increasing demands for high throughput, bandwidth with Quality of Service (QoS), and low latency. Given that most of the spectrums below 6 GHz are nearly used up, it is not feasible to employ the traditional spectrum, which is currently in use. Therefore, a promising and highly feasible effort to satisfy this insufficient frequency spectrum is to acquire new frequency bands for next-generation mobile communications. Toward this end, the primary effort has been focused on utilizing the millimeter-wave (mmWave) as the most promising candidate for the frequency spectrum. However, though the mmWave frequency band can fulfill the desired bandwidth requirements, it has been demonstrated to endure several issues like scattering, atmospheric absorption, fading, and especially penetration losses compared to the existing sub-6 GHz frequency band. Then, it is fundamental to optimize the mmWave band propagation channel to facilitate the practical 5G implementation for the network operators. Therefore, this study intends to investigate the outdoor channel characteristics of 26, 28, 36, and 38 GHz frequency bands for the communication infrastructure at the building to the ground floor in both Line of Sight (LOS) and Non-Line of Sight (NLOS) environments. The experimental campaign has studied the propagation path loss models such as Floating-Intercept (FI) and Close-In (CI) for the building to ground floor environment in LOS and NLOS scenarios. The findings obtained from the field experiments clearly show that the CI propagation model delivers much better performance in comparison with the FI model, thanks to its simple setup, accuracy, and precise function.