Channel Measurements and Modeling for 400–600-MHz Bands in Urban and Suburban Scenarios

Abstract

Sub-1 GHz bands have been used for many years and now some of them will be reallocated for new applications, including the fifth generation (5G) wireless communication systems and beyond, Internet of Things (IoT), smart grid, etc. As the well-known path-loss (PL) models are mainly applicable in 2-6-GHz frequency range, a new channel measurement campaign is needed to study the propagation characteristics at sub-1 GHz bands. In this article, we conduct fixed-to-mobile wideband channel measurements at 400-600-MHz bands in urban and suburban scenarios using the time domain channel sounder. As the interference and noise signals are severe, the transmitted waveform is carefully designed to enlarge the system dynamic range. Meanwhile, ray tracing simulation is applied to construct the measurement environments and do the mutual verification with measurement results. The two-slope PL model and lognormal shadowing fading model are proposed for large-scale fading channel modeling. The root mean square (RMS) delay spread (DS), number of paths, and diffraction characteristics are also analyzed. The results will have great importance for the coming new applications at sub-1 GHz bands.