mmWave on the Road: Investigating the Weather Impact on 60 GHz V2X Communication Channels

We study the impact of a diverse set of weather conditions on 60 GHz communication channels. In this context, we are primarily interested in next-generation Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication using mmWave frequencies. Given the application constraints of this scenario, we focus on rain and snow - and different rain and snow intensities. We extended the MilliCar ns-3 model to incorporate standardized rain and snow based attenuation models as suggested, for example, by the ITU. We cross-validated our simulator using as a reference the results obtained from the validated-well-known NYUSIM channel model simulator. In the core of this paper, we present an extensive simulation study on the impact of rain and snow in a realistic vehicular network at 60 GHz channels. Our results show that weather conditions can reduce the communication distance significantly (by up to 60 m).