Better than Rician: modelling millimetre wave channels as two-wave with diffuse power

Abstract

This contribution provides experimental evidence for the two-wave with diffuse power (TWDP) fading model. We have conducted two indoor millimetre wave measurement campaigns with directive horn antennas at both link ends. One horn antenna is mounted in a corner of our laboratory, while the other is steerable and scans azimuth and elevation. Our first measurement campaign is based on scalar network analysis with 7 GHz of bandwidth. Our second measurement campaign obtains magnitude and phase information; it is additionally sampled directionally at several positions in space. We apply Akaike’s information criterion to decide whether Rician fading sufficiently explains the data or the generalised TWDP fading model is necessary. Our results indicate that the TWDP fading hypothesis is favoured over Rician fading in situations where the steerable antenna is pointing towards reflecting objects or is slightly misaligned at line-of-sight. We demonstrate TWDP fading in several different domains, namely, frequency, space, and time.