CUNEC: A Path Loss Model for Urban Cell-Free Massive MIMO Networks

Abstract

Accurate path loss (PL) modeling is essential for evaluating and optimizing cell-free massive MIMO systems, especially in dense urban environments where traditional models fail to capture the complexity of real-world propagation. This paper introduces CUNEC (Cell-free massive MIMO for Urban Non-stationary Environments with Correlations, a novel PL model that accounts for spatial non-stationarity, inter-access point (AP)/user equipment (UE) correlations, and urban-specific propagation phenomena such as corner diffraction and street canyon waveguiding.bCUNEC segments AP-UE paths by street order, models PL as a stochastic function of urban geometry, and integrates spatially correlated shadowing. The parameters are derived from large-scale ray tracing and validated against both additional ray tracing in New York, NY and real-world channel measurements in Los Angeles, CA. Compared to the conventional alpha-beta model, CUNEC significantly improves accuracy in the considered urban propagation scenarios. An open-source dataset comprising over 30,000 AP locations and 128 UE positions is also released to support reproducible research and future system development.