Propagation characteristics of short-range radio links at 60 GHz for mobile intervehicle communication

It has been shown that a transmission range of 500 m with direct line of sight is achievable at 60 GHz with directional antennas and a transmission power below 2 W. If the line of sight is obstructed by trees, buildings, etc., communication is possible only within a drastically reduced distance. The channel will be non-time- and non-frequency-selective for a bit rate around 1 Mbit/s. The various propagation effects such as power-law with distance, oxygen and rain absorption, edge diffraction, and frequency- and time-selectivity are theoretically examined and a simple two-path propagation model is presented. A more realistic channel model combining the two-path model with multipath propagation is then developed. As expected, the minima of the two-path model are attenuated by the multipath signal. But this advantage is paid for by a lot of shorter fades which in fact could be more easily handled with error correction methods.<>