UWB channel parameters in a C130 airplane

The objective of this study is to obtain a comprehensive understanding of UWB propagation in a Hercules C-130 military airplane. An extended measurement campaign took place in the body of the airplane and many interesting results were extracted. In particular, we initially present results for the path-loss factor that expresses the distance dependence for various bandwidths in the frequency band allocated by FCC for UWB signals (i.e., 3.1GHZ to 10.6GHz). Then, we evaluate time dispersion parameters, namely, maximum excess delay, mean excess delay and r.m.s. delay spread and we present the behaviour of these parameters versus the distance of transmit and receive antennas. Moreover, we provide information on the number of significant multipath components and the percentage of the total energy they carry. Finally, we model the dependence of the number of multipath components on the delay spread of the channel.