Petroleum Refinery Multi-Antenna Propagation Measurements

TL;DR

This study conducts multi-antenna propagation measurements at a petroleum refinery, analyzing key radio propagation parameters to inform wireless communication performance in such environments.

Contribution

First multi-antenna measurement campaign at an operational petroleum refinery providing detailed propagation environment data.

Findings

Large scale attenuation is relatively mild

Fading is severe in the environment

Antenna and frequency diversity can improve performance

Abstract

This paper presents the results of the first multi- antenna propagation measurement campaign to be conducted at an operating petroleum refining facility. The measurement equipment transmits pseudo-random noise test signals from two antennas at a 2.47 GHz carrier with a signal bandwidth of approximately 25 MHz. The measurement data is analyzed to extract path loss exponent, shadowing distribution, fading distribution, coherence bandwidth and antenna correlation. The results reveal an environment where large scale attenuation is relatively mild, fading is severe and good performance is expected from both antenna and frequency diversity.