Measurements at 5G Commercial 26 GHz Frequency with Above and on Rooftop Level Antenna Masts in Urban Environment

Abstract

A better and accurate knowledge about the channel propagation characteristics is required to fully exploit the commercial frequency band of 26 GHz for Fifth Generation (5G) of cellular systems. Little is known about suitability of current urban macrocellular sites for serving millimeter wave frequency e.g., 26 GHz for 5G base stations. Therefore, in order to efficiently utilize the existing macro sites infrastructure an extensive millimeter wave outdoor measurement campaign is needed. Hence, in this paper we carry out a wide band continuous wave measurement spanning over a bandwidth of 800 MHz. Measurements are done at eighty-one equally separated frequency points in 26 GHz band. The measurements are performed with 76 m and 44 m transmitter antenna height in urban environments, with sufficient number of measurement locations. Mainly, we target the non-line of sight and obstructed-line of sight conditions. We carefully compute the path loss based on the measurement data, and also present the path loss exponent based large scale path loss model for two different considered scenarios. This paper also we discuss the impact of transmitter antenna height on the signal propagation.