38 GHz and 60 GHz angle-dependent propagation for cellular & peer-to-peer wireless communications

As the cost of massively broadband® semiconductors continue to be driven down at millimeter wave (mm-wave) frequencies, there is great potential to use LMDS spectrum (in the 28-38 GHz bands) and the 60 GHz band for cellular/mobile and peer-to-peer wireless networks. This work presents urban cellular and peer-to-peer RF wideband channel measurements using a broadband sliding correlator channel sounder and steerable antennas at carrier frequencies of 38 GHz and 60 GHz, and presents measurements showing the propagation time delay spread and path loss as a function of separation distance and antenna pointing angles for many types of real-world environments. The data presented here show that at 38 GHz, unobstructed Line of Site (LOS) channels obey free space propagation path loss while non-LOS (NLOS) channels have large multipath delay spreads and can exploit many different pointing angles to provide propagation links. At 60 GHz, there is notably more path loss, smaller delay spreads, and fewer unique antenna angles for creating a link. For both 38 GHz and 60 GHz, we demonstrate empirical relationships between the RMS delay spread and antenna pointing angles, and observe that excess path loss (above free space) has an inverse relationship with transmitter-to-receiver separation distance.