Analysis of Human-Body Blockage in Urban Millimeter-Wave Cellular Communications

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new analytical model to characterize human-induced blockage in urban millimeter-wave wireless communications, accounting for environmental factors and system parameters, validated through simulations.

Contribution

It presents a novel, general, and tractable model for human blockage in mmWave systems, incorporating environmental and system variables, validated with ray-tracing simulations.

Findings

Blockage probability increases with human density.

Optimal transmitter antenna height maximizes signal strength.

Model accurately predicts blockage effects based on system parameters.

Abstract

The use of extremely high frequency (EHF) or millimeter-wave (mmWave) band has attracted significant attention for the next generation wireless access networks. As demonstrated by recent measurements, mmWave frequencies render themselves quite sensitive to "blocking" caused by obstacles like foliage, humans, vehicles, etc. However, there is a dearth of analytical models for characterizing such blocking and the consequent effect on the signal reliability. In this paper, we propose a novel, general, and tractable model for characterizing the blocking caused by humans (assuming them to be randomly located in the environment) to mmWave propagation as a function of system parameters like transmitter-receiver locations and dimensions, as well as density and dimensions of humans. Moreover, the proposed model is validated using a ray-launcher tool. Utilizing the proposed model, the blockage probability is shown to increase with human density and separation between the transmitter-receiver pair. Furthermore, the developed analysis is shown to demonstrate the existence of a transmitter antenna height that maximizes the received signal strength, which in turn is a function of the transmitter-receiver distance and their dimensions.