Millimeter Wave Channel Measurements and Implications for PHY Layer Design

TL;DR

This paper investigates millimeter wave channel characteristics through measurements at multiple frequencies and environments, analyzing their impact on PHY layer design and proposing solutions for practical system deployment.

Contribution

It provides comprehensive mmW channel measurements across various environments and frequencies, highlighting propagation challenges and suggesting design strategies for robust mmW systems.

Findings

Significant path loss and delay spread differences across frequencies.

Presence of signal notches due to material reflection and penetration.

Proposed solutions to mitigate propagation impairments.

Abstract

There has been an increasing interest in the millimeter wave (mmW) frequency regime in the design of next-generation wireless systems. The focus of this work is on understanding mmW channel properties that have an important bearing on the feasibility of mmW systems in practice and have a significant impact on physical (PHY) layer design. In this direction, simultaneous channel sounding measurements at 2.9, 29 and 61 GHz are performed at a number of transmit-receive location pairs in indoor office, shopping mall and outdoor environments. Based on these measurements, this paper first studies large-scale properties such as path loss and delay spread across different carrier frequencies in these scenarios. Towards the goal of understanding the feasibility of outdoor-to-indoor coverage, material measurements corresponding to mmW reflection and penetration are studied and significant notches in signal reception spread over a few GHz are reported. Finally, implications of these measurements on system design are discussed and multiple solutions are proposed to overcome these impairments.