Statistical Modeling of Propagation Channels for Terahertz Band

TL;DR

This paper investigates statistical parameters of Terahertz band propagation channels, focusing on line-of-sight conditions, antenna misalignment, and environmental effects, to support the development of high-capacity wireless communication systems.

Contribution

It provides empirical measurements and analysis of key statistical parameters for THz channels, including path loss, antenna misalignment, and humidity effects, aiding future system design.

Findings

Exponential decay of received power confirmed in time and frequency domains.

Path loss exponent varies with frequency and environmental conditions.

Humidity impacts signal attenuation in LOS THz channels.

Abstract

Digital revolution and recent advances in telecommunications technology enable to design communication systems which operate within the regions close to the theoretical capacity limits. Ever-increasing demand for wireless communications and emerging numerous high-capacity services, data rates and applications mandate providers to employ more bandwidth-oriented solutions to meet the requirements. It is clear that such rates could only be achieved by employing more bandwidth with the state-of-the- art technology. Considering the fact that bands in the range of 275GHz-3000GHz, which are known as Terahertz (THz) bands, are not allocated yet for specific active services around the globe, there is an enormous potential to achieve the desired data rates. Although THz bands look promising to achieve data rates on the order of several tens of Gbps, realization of fully operational THz communications systems obliges to carry out a multi- disciplinary effort including statistical propagation and channel characterizations, adaptive transceiver designs, reconfigurable platforms, advanced signal processing algorithms and techniques along with upper layer protocols equipped with various security and privacy levels. Therefore, in this study, several important statistical parameters for line-of-sight (LOS) channels are measured. High resolution frequency domain measurements are carried out at single-sweep within a span of 60GHz. Impact of antenna misalignment under LOS conditions is also investigated. By validating exponential decay of the received power in both time and frequency domain, path loss exponent is examined for different frequencies along with the frequency-dependent path loss phenomenon. Furthermore, impact of humidity is also tested under LOS scenario. Measurement results are presented along with relevant discussions and future directions are provided as well.