Experimental Study of Fog and Suspended Water Effects on the 5G Millimeter Wave Communication Channel

Abstract

Controlled experiments were conducted to examine the effect of fog on signal propagation in wireless communication and radar links operating in millimeter wavelengths. The experiments were carried out in a fog laboratory to verify theoretical results obtained from Liebe’s model. Attenuation and phase shifts of millimeter wave (mmW) radiation were measured, at different fog density characterized by the visibility distance and its water vapor content. Utilizing a vector network analyzer (VNA) enabled us to examine the actual atmospheric attenuation and the phase shift caused by the fog retardation. The experimental results demonstrate good agreement with the simulations even for very low visibility in highly dense fog. The study can be used to estimate link budget of mmW wireless links, including those allocated for the fifth generation (5G) of cellular networks.

Atmospheric Effects on OFDM Wireless Links Operating in the Millimeter Wave Regime

“…The model was tested experimentally for various foggy conditions in a controlled environment demonstrating good agreement with measured results [9][10][11].…”

“…The revealed counterclockwise rotation of the diagram is a result of dispersion of the propagating OFDM signal due to the rain. The rotation angle increases with frequency corresponding to the incremental phase dispersion, given in term of ∆β( f ) in Equation (11). Both effects cause the symbols to change their position in the constellation I/Q domain resulting in misinterpretation by the demodulators and erroneous symbol receptions.…”

“…The signal phase shift and time delay effects are usually ignored, although they can be significant in extreme conditions [5,6]. Pinhasi et al presented in their previous studies on MMW atmospheric propagation, theoretical and experimental results of absorptive and dispersive propagation effects and their influence on the signal strength and phase dispersion [7][8][9][10][11]. It was found that apart from attenuation, the dispersive effects like group delay should be considered in the design of MMW and THz radar and wireless communication links.…”

Real-time measurements and performance analysis of closed-loop MIMO service for mobile operators

“…Note also that potential 5G services that can be provided by mmWave (e.g. at 28 Ghz) spectrum can be affected by the surrounding environment, such as building shadowing, reflection, rain attenuation, etc [33]. However our frequency ranges of eNodeBs used throughout the experiments were on the order of 800 Mhz and 1800 Mhz.…”