Channel modelling of a cooker hob environment for smart kitchens

Abstract

This study presents a study on the radio channel modelling for realising reliable wireless communication in kitchen environments. The study allows optimising the wireless communication between a cooking pot and the kitchen hood in a smart home's kitchen. The delay, angular and path loss characteristics of the wireless channel are obtained from channel sounding measurements. The authors compared path loss at frequencies 868 MHz, 2.4 and 5.25 GHz. The influence of the metallic pot on the antenna characteristics is assessed by measuring the radiation pattern of the antenna. The antenna gain increases when the antenna is placed next to the metallic pot. Based on the channel sounding measurements and antenna model, a two-ray channel model is proposed consisting of one line-of-sight component and a component caused by reflections on the hood and hob. For the validation of the proposed model, a narrowband patch antenna is designed and used for measurements in a real kitchen. The validation confirms the general applicability of the proposed method. The results of the joint channel and antenna model are used in link budget calculations. Via the link budget, the minimum required TX power to allow reliable wireless communication is calculated.