Characterization and modelling of scattered wireless channel at 60 GHz in an underground mine gallery

• Main Author: Tariq, Shah Ahsanuzzaman Md
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2016
• Subjects: Electrical engineering
• ISBN: 9798209774860

More than a decade, there is a surge in demand and development of wireless communication system applications to deliver multimedia services. Nowadays the research is focused on the design of high speed (i.e., 1 Gbps) wireless system particularly in dense areas such as conference room, shopping mall, stadium and open public events. Wireless local area network (WLAN) and cellular network are making high potential approaches to fulfill high data rate by using different advanced technologies such as coexistence between Long Term Evaluation Unlicensed (LTE-U) and Wi-Fi Wireless channels. Moreover, the feasibility to use high-frequency spectrum (i.e., >6 GHz), a physical layer research at 60 GHz for dense networks are highlighted where short-distance communication links (i.e., < 10 m) are required both in WLAN (i.e., WiGig) and cellular network (i.e., 5G small cell). However, the applications of 60 GHz bands is driven into underground wireless communication for higher precision geolocation, a High Definition (HD) video streaming applications in a larger gallery length (i.e., > 100 m) due to its beamforming capability and higher capacity. To assist the system designer, it is necessary to know the scattered wireless channel propagation information since the gallery floor, ceiling and walls consist of the different magnitude of the roughness (i.e., >5 mm). This thesis presents the results of wireless channel characterization and statistical modeling at 60 GHz where the measurements were carried out in CANMET underground mine (40 m and 70 m gallery depths). Several measurements were conducted with different antenna configurations and polarizations. Results show that angular and temporal dispersion are proportional to the mine gallery dimensions. Results also show that the angular spread of the multipath is inversely proportional to the transmitter receiver separation distance. A strong scattering phenomenon is also observed in the channel by observing multipath angle of arrivals. The use of Horizontal (H) and vertical (V) polarizations were performed due to its different radiation pattern can provide a different temporal dispersion behavior. The results show that a vertically polarized antenna provides a lower value of path loss exponent and a higher value of root mean square (RMS) delay spread compared to a horizontal one. Since no clustering effect was observed, a statistical modeling approach with the multipath arrivals and amplitudes was considered. In addition, the reflection coefficient measurements were conducted to investigate the scattering effect from the rough surface. By inserting measured surface height parameters, the known scattering models were also analyzed to have an idea to implement a modeling approach of the scattered channel.