With the growing demand of vehicle-mounted sensors over the last years, the amount of critical data communications has increased significantly. Developing applications such as autonomous vehicles, drones or real-time high-definition entertainment requires high data-rates in the order of multiple Gbps. In the next generation of vehicle-to-everything (V2X) networks, a wider bandwidth will be needed, as well as more precise localization capabilities and lower transmission latencies than current vehicular communication systems due to safety application requirements; 5G millimeter wave (mmWave) technology is envisioned to be the key factor in the development of this next generation of vehicular communications. However, the implementation of mmWave links arises with difficulties due to blocking effects between mmWave transceivers, as well as different channel impairments for these high frequency bands. In this work, the mmWave channel propagation characterization for V2X communications has been performed by means of a deterministic in-house 3D ray launching simulation technique. A complex heterogeneous urban scenario has been modeled to analyze the different propagation phenomena of multiple mmWave V2X links. Results for large and small-scale propagation effects are obtained for line-of-sight (LOS) and non-LOS (NLOS) trajectories, enabling inter-data vehicular comparison. These analyzed results and the proposed methodology can aid in an adequate design and implementation of next generation vehicular networks.
Millimeter Wave Spatial Channel Characterization for Vehicular Communications
