Analysis of human-body blockage in urban millimeter-wave cellular communications

Abstract

The use of extremely high frequency (EHF) or millimeter-wave (mmWave) band has attracted significant attention for the next generation wireless access networks. As demonstrated by recent measurements, mmWave frequencies render themselves quite sensitive to "blocking" caused by obstacles like foliage, humans, vehicles, etc. However, there is a dearth of analytical models for characterizing such blocking and the consequent effect on the signal reliability. In this paper, we propose a novel, general, and tractable model for characterizing the blocking caused by humans (assuming them to be randomly located in the environment) to mmWave propagation as a function of system parameters like transmitter-receiver locations and dimensions, as well as density and dimensions of humans. Moreover, the proposed model is validated using a ray-launcher tool. Utilizing the proposed model, the blockage probability is shown to increase with human density and separation between the transmitter-receiver pair. Furthermore, the developed analysis is shown to demonstrate the existence of a transmitter antenna height that maximizes the received signal strength, which in turn is a function of the transmitter-receiver distance and their dimensions.

Driven by Capacity or Blockage? A Millimeter Wave Blockage Analysis

“…Dynamic blockage has been given significant importance by 3GPP in TR 38.901 of Release 14 [14]. An analytical model in [15] considers a single access point, a stationary user, and blockers located randomly in an area. The model in [16] is developed for a specific scenario of a road intersection using a Manhattan Poisson point process model.…”

“…where a is given in (15). Next, we evaluate P (B) in (12) Finally, the conditional blockage probability P (B|C) conditioned on coverage event is obtained as P (B|C) = P (B, C) P (C) = ∞ n=1 P (B|N )P N (n) P (C) = e −apλ T πR 2 − e −pλ T πR 2 1 − e −pλ T πR 2 .…”

An Accurate Approximation of Resource Request Distributions in Millimeter Wave 3GPP New Radio Systems

“…In addition to inherent advantages of 5G NR related to the use directional antenna radiation and reception patterns and extremely wide bandwidth, the use of millimeter-wave frequency band (30 − 100 GHz) brings unique challenges to system designers, e.g., blockage of propagation between communicating entities path that may lead to abrupt fluctuations of the signal-to-noise ratio [2,3,4,5]. To provide deployment guidelines for 5G NR network operators and evaluate forthcoming technology under a wide variety of prospective scenarios, researchers currently analyze the performance of NR systems in various deployments.…”

Coverage and Network Requirements of a “Big Data” Flash Crowd Monitoring System Using Users’ Devices

“…The problem of visibility in the random field of blockers has been addressed in the context of search in forests and, more recently, in context of extremely/tremendous high frequency electromagnetic wave propagation (EHF/THF) in crowded environments [1,5]. As demonstrated by recent measurements, millimeter wave frequencies render themselves quite sensitive to "blocking" caused by obstacles such as humans, vehicles, etc.… Figure 12 shows an illustrated scenario, according to [5], followed by spatial model including a Tx located at a particular height h T above the ground and a Rx located at the height h R .…”