Experimental Validation of the Performance of Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Ducts as Communication Channel at 60 GHz

Abstract

We demonstrate heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) ducts as viable and inexpensive high-speed communication links inside of buildings at millimeter (mm-wave) frequencies. HVAC ducts are hollow metal pipes which can be used as waveguides for mm-wave signals. Indoor communication at mm-wave using HVAC ducts outperforms the existing communication methods and the same has been validated through theoretical and extensive experimental results here. Measurement and system calculations show that a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) of -$50\mathrm {d}\mathrm {B}\mathrm {m}$ and data rates in excess of 600 Mbps can be achieved over a distance of up to 8 m using HVAC ducts at 60 GHz.