Open Access

ARTICLE

Propagation Characterization and Analysis for 5G mmWave Through Field Experiments

by Faizan Qamar¹, Mhd Nour Hindia², Tharek Abd Rahman³, Rosilah Hassan¹, Kaharudin Dimyati², Quang Ngoc Nguyen^4,*

1 Centre for Cyber Security, Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), 43600, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
2 Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
3 Wireless Communication Centre, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
4 Department of Computer Science and Communications Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo, 169-8050, Japan

* Corresponding Author: Quang Ngoc Nguyen. Email:

Computers, Materials & Continua 2021, 68(2), 2249-2264. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2021.017198

Received 23 January 2021; Accepted 25 February 2021; Issue published 13 April 2021

Abstract

The 5G network has been intensively investigated to realize the ongoing early deployment stage as an effort to match the exponential growth of the number of connected users and their increasing demands for high throughput, bandwidth with Quality of Service (QoS), and low latency. Given that most of the spectrums below 6 GHz are nearly used up, it is not feasible to employ the traditional spectrum, which is currently in use. Therefore, a promising and highly feasible effort to satisfy this insufficient frequency spectrum is to acquire new frequency bands for next-generation mobile communications. Toward this end, the primary effort has been focused on utilizing the millimeter-wave (mmWave) as the most promising candidate for the frequency spectrum. However, though the mmWave frequency band can fulfill the desired bandwidth requirements, it has been demonstrated to endure several issues like scattering, atmospheric absorption, fading, and especially penetration losses compared to the existing sub-6 GHz frequency band. Then, it is fundamental to optimize the mmWave band propagation channel to facilitate the practical 5G implementation for the network operators. Therefore, this study intends to investigate the outdoor channel characteristics of 26, 28, 36, and 38 GHz frequency bands for the communication infrastructure at the building to the ground floor in both Line of Sight (LOS) and Non-Line of Sight (NLOS) environments. The experimental campaign has studied the propagation path loss models such as Floating-Intercept (FI) and Close-In (CI) for the building to ground floor environment in LOS and NLOS scenarios. The findings obtained from the field experiments clearly show that the CI propagation model delivers much better performance in comparison with the FI model, thanks to its simple setup, accuracy, and precise function.

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