THz Band Channel Measurements and Statistical Modeling for Urban D2D Environments

TL;DR

This paper provides the first extensive urban outdoor THz band channel measurements, analyzing key characteristics like path loss, delay spread, and multipath components to support future 6G system development.

Contribution

It presents the first detailed ultra-wideband, double-directional THz channel measurements in urban environments, including modeling of key channel parameters.

Findings

Outdoor THz communication over tens of meters is feasible even in NLoS scenarios.

Omni-directional delay spreads of up to 100 ns were observed.

A large number of multipath components were detected at 1 GHz bandwidth.

Abstract

THz band is envisioned to be used in 6G systems to meet the ever-increasing demand for data rate. However, before an eventual system design and deployment can proceed, detailed channel sounding measurements are required to understand key channel characteristics. In this paper, we present a first extensive set of channel measurements for urban outdoor environments that are ultra-wideband (1 GHz 3dB bandwidth), and double-directional where both the transmitter and receiver are at the same height. In all, we present measurements at 38 Tx/Rx location pairs, consisting of a total of nearly 50,000 impulse responses, at both line-of-sight (LoS) and non-line-of-sight (NLoS) cases in the 1-100 m range. We provide modeling for path loss, shadowing, delay spread, angular spread and multipath component (MPC) power distribution. We find, among other things, that outdoor communication over tens of meters is feasible in this frequency range even in NLoS scenarios, that omni-directional delay spreads of up to 100 ns, and directional delay spreads of up to 10 ns are observed, while angular spreads are also quite significant, and a surprisingly large number of MPCs are observed for 1 GHz bandwidth and 13 degree beamwidth. These results constitute an important first step towards better understanding the wireless channel in the THz band.