Wideband Channel Characterization for 6G Networks in Industrial Environments

Wireless data traffic has increased significantly due to the rapid growth of smart terminals and evolving real-time technologies. With the dramatic growth of data traffic, the existing cellular networks including Fifth-Generation (5G) networks cannot fully meet the increasingly rising data rate requirements. The Sixth-Generation (6G) mobile network is expected to achieve the high data rate requirements of new transmission technologies and spectrum. This paper presents the radio channel measurements to study the channel characteristics of 6G networks in the 107–109 GHz band in three different industrial environments. The path loss, K-factor, and time dispersion parameters are investigated. Two popular path loss models for indoor environments, the close-in free space reference distance (CI) and floating intercept (FI), are used to examine the path loss. The mean excess delay (MED) and root mean squared delay spread (RMSDS) are used to investigate the time dispersion of the channel. The path loss results show that the CI and FI models fit the measured data well in all industrial settings with a path loss exponent (PLE) of 1.6–2. The results of the K-factor show that the high value in industrial environments at the sub-6 GHz band still holds well in our measured environments at a high frequency band above 100 GHz. For the time dispersion parameters, it is found that most of the received signal energy falls in the early delay bins. This work represents a first step to establish the feasibility of using 6G networks operating above 100 GHz for industrial applications.