Impact of atmospheric impairments on mmWave based outdoor communication

Abstract

Substantial growth of demand for mobile data and rapidly increasing spread of personal communication devices such as smart phones and tablets is the major challenge faced by the mobile service providers in recent years. The allotted spectrum for the currently operating mobile communication systems have been saturated in the last few years by such a considerable rate that the future fifth generation network would not be able to operate without applying new frequencies. In accordance with the concept of 5G, millimeter wave frequency band will also be used along with the currently used frequency bands. In this particular spectrum however, a new and most significant attenuation factor due to precipitation and atmospheric absorption is introduced. In this paper the effects of precipitation, fog and atmospheric absorption on millimeter wave propagation are investigated using MATLAB.