Off-body LOS and NLOS channel characterization in a mine environment

In this paper, the off-body performance of a single-input single-output (SISO) system was evaluated in Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) situations and compared with measurements done with a clear Line of Sight (LOS) link. The obstructed link study takes into account the human shadowing effect, usually caused by close by miners interrupting the transmitter-receiver link. Measurement campaigns were performed using Monopole antennas in an underground gold mine. The off-body channels were characterized in terms of the channel impulse response, RMS delay spread, and coherence bandwidth. The channel capacity was determined using the well-known Shannon formula for LOS and NLOS situations. The variation of the channel parameters in the different measurement scenarios was analyzed.