60 GHz mmWave Signal Propagation Characterization in Workshop and Steel Industry

Abstract

Communication systems are a key element for the industry 4.0 revolution, where the remote access to the machinery is a fundamental part for the automation of tasks related to monitoring and control of the different industrial processes. There is an increasing interest in performing such communications using a wireless medium, as they offer several advantages as a lower cost, greater flexibility or the ability to operate in moving elements. However, existing works have showed that the achievable performance in the sub-6 GHz frequency bands is insufficient to cope with all the requirements, which motivated the analysis of the millimeter wave spectrum for these use cases. Industrial environments present a harsh condition for electromagnetic wave propagation, where the abundance of reflective surfaces can present difficulties to properly exchange information. Thus, a thorough analysis and characterization of the propagation through this kind of environment is necessary to develop protocols and standards accordingly. This work provides the results of measurements carried out in two industrial facilities, which are a university workshop and a pit oven building from a steel company. Metrics of the results are computed and discussed as well, where a significantly larger losses can be seen for the pit oven measurements compared to other industrial scenarios.