Evaluation of Empirical Ray-Tracing Model for an Urban Outdoor Scenario at 73 GHz E-Band

In the summer of 2013, a wideband propagation measurement campaign using rotating directional antennas at 73 GHz was conducted at the New York University (NYU) campus, in order to collect extensive field measurements for use in a millimeter wave (mmWave) E-band statistical channel model. While the measurement campaign provided over 50 Gigabytes of wideband power delay profiles and angular responses [1], [2], the time and labor intensive measurements were based on only 5 transmitter (Tx) locations and 27 receiver (Rx) locations, making up a total of 74 Tx-Rx link combinations. To help generalize the measurements for immediate model development and eventual site planning, this paper presents an empirical ray-tracing model, with the goal of finding a suitable approach such that ray-tracing (RT) can fill in the gaps of the measurements. Here, we use the measured data to investigate the prediction capability of an empirical RT model, in which the 3D model of New York City (including the building structures and interaction losses) are greatly simplified. The comparison between the measured and predicted results show good accuracy is obtained when a simplified RT model is used, suggesting that fast and simple ray tracers will be able to correctly predict the propagation characteristics at mmWave bands.