Modeling blockage in high directional wireless. systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces two low-complexity models for high-frequency wireless links that account for partial blockages, providing analytical expressions for outage probability and demonstrating their impact on signal reliability.

Contribution

It presents novel models that incorporate partial blockage effects in high-frequency wireless systems, extending beyond binary blockage assumptions.

Findings

Models accurately predict outage probability under partial blockage.

Numerical results show how transmission parameters influence blockage effects.

Closed-form expressions facilitate practical analysis of blockage impact.

Abstract

While the wireless word moves towards higher frequency bands, new challenges arises, due to the inherent characteristics of the transmission links, such as high path and penetration losses. Penetration losses causes blockages that in turn can significantly reduce the signal strength at the receiver. Most published contributions consider a binary blockage stage, i.e. either fully blocked or blockage-free links. However, in realistic scenarios, a link can be partially blocked. Motivated by this, in this paper, we present two low-complexity models that are based on tight approximations and accommodates the impact of partial blockage in high-frequency links. To demonstrate the applicability of the derived framework, we present closed-form expressions for the outage probability for the case in which the distance between the center of the receiver plane and the blocker's shadow center follow uniform distribution. Numerical results verify the derived framework and reveal how the transmission parameters affect blockage.