Propagation measurements and channel models in Indoor Environment at 6.75 GHz FR1(C) and 16.95 GHz FR3 Upper-mid band Spectrum for 5G and 6G

New spectrum allocations in the 4--8 GHz FR1(C) and 7--24 GHz FR3 mid-band frequency spectrum are being considered for 5G/6G cellular deployments. This paper presents results from the world's first comprehensive indoor hotspot (InH) propagation measurement campaign at 6.75 GHz and 16.95 GHz in the NYU WIRELESS Research Center using a 1 GHz wideband channel sounder system over distances from 11 to 97 m in line-of-sight (LOS) and non-LOS (NLOS). Analysis of directional and omnidirectional path loss (PL) using the close-in free space 1 m reference distance model shows a familiar waveguiding effect in LOS with an omnidirectional path loss exponent (PLE) of 1.40 at 6.75 GHz and 1.32 at 16.95 GHz. Compared to mmWave frequencies, the directional NLOS PLEs are lower at FR3 and FR1(C), while omnidirectional NLOS PLEs are similar, suggesting better propagation distances at lower frequencies for links with omnidirectional antennas at both ends of the links, but also, importantly, showing that higher gain antennas will offer better coverage at higher frequencies when antenna apertures are kept same over all frequencies. Comparison of the omnidirectional and directional RMS delay spread (DS) at FR1(C) and FR3 with mmWave frequencies indicates a clear decrease with increasing frequency. The mean spatial lobe and omnidirectional RMS angular spread (AS) is found to be wider at 6.75 GHz compared to 16.95 GHz indicating more multipath components are found in the azimuthal spatial domain at lower frequencies.

Wideband Penetration Loss through Building Materials and Partitions at 6.75 GHz in FR1(C) and 16.95 GHz in the FR3 Upper Mid-band spectrum

The 4--8 GHz FR1(C) and 7--24 GHz upper mid-band FR3 spectrum are promising new 6G spectrum allocations being considered by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and major governments around the world. There is an urgent need to understand the propagation behavior and radio coverage, outage, and material penetration for the global mobile wireless industry in both indoor and outdoor environments in these emerging frequency bands. This work presents measurements and models that describe the penetration loss in co-polarized and cross-polarized antenna configurations, exhibited by common materials found inside buildings and on building perimeters, including concrete, low-emissivity glass, wood, doors, drywall, and whiteboard at 6.75 GHz and 16.95 GHz. Measurement results show consistent lower penetration loss at 6.75 GHz compared to 16.95 GHz for all ten materials measured for co and cross-polarized antennas at incidence. For instance, the low-emissivity glass wall presents 33.7 dB loss at 6.75 GHz, while presenting 42.3 dB loss at 16.95 GHz. Penetration loss at these frequencies is contrasted with measurements at sub-6 GHz, mmWave and sub-THz frequencies along with 3GPP material penetration loss models. The results provide critical knowledge for future 5G and 6G cellular system deployments as well as refinements for the 3GPP material penetration models.

Waste Factor: A New Metric for Evaluating Power Efficiency in any Cascade

In this paper, we expand upon a new metric called the Waste Factor ($W$), a mathematical framework used to evaluate power efficiency in cascaded communication systems, by accounting for power wasted in individual components along a cascade. We show that the derivation of the Waste Factor, a unifying metric for defining wasted power along the signal path of any cascade, is similar to the mathematical approach used by H. Friis in 1944 to develop the Noise Factor ($F$), which has since served as a unifying metric for quantifying additive noise power in a cascade. Furthermore, the mathematical formulation of $W$ can be utilized in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) design and control for enhanced power efficiency. We consider the power usage effectiveness (PUE), which is a widely used energy efficiency metric for data centers, to evaluate $W$ for the data center as a whole. The use of $W$ allows easy comparison of power efficiency between data centers and their components. Our study further explores how insertion loss of components in a cascaded communication system influences $W$ at 28 GHz and 142 GHz along with the data rate performance, evaluated using the consumption efficiency factor (CEF). We observe CEF's marked sensitivity, particularly to phase shifter insertion loss changes. Notably, CEF variations are more prominent in uplink transmissions, whereas downlink transmissions offer relative CEF stability. Our exploration also covers the effects of varying User Equipment (UE) and Base Station (BS) deployment density on CEF in cellular networks. This work underscores the enhanced energy efficiency at 142 GHz, compared to 28 GHz, as UE and BS numbers escalate.

A Sub-Terahertz Sliding Correlator Channel Sounder with Absolute Timing using Precision Time Protocol over Wi-Fi

Radio channels at mmWave and sub-THz frequencies for 5G and 6G communications offer large channel bandwidths (hundreds of MHz to several GHz) to achieve multi-Gbps data rates. Accurate modeling of the radio channel for these wide bandwidths requires capturing the absolute timing of multipath component (MPC) propagation delays with sub-nanosecond accuracy. Achieving such timing accuracy is challenging due to clock drift in untethered transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) clocks used in time-domain channel sounders, yet will become vital in many future 6G applications. This paper proposes a novel solution utilizing precision time protocol (PTP) and periodic drift correction to achieve absolute timing for MPCs in power delay profiles (PDPs) --captured as discrete samples using sliding correlation channel sounders. Two RaspberryPi computers are programmed to implement PTP over a dedicated Wi-Fi link and synchronize the TX and RX Rubidium clocks continuously every second. This synchronization minimizes clock drift, reducing PDP sample drift to 150 samples/hour, compared to several thousand samples/hour without synchronization. Additionally, a periodic drift correction algorithm is applied to eliminate PDP sample drift and achieve sub-nanosecond timing accuracy for MPC delays. The achieved synchronicity eliminates the need for tedious and sometimes inaccurate ray tracing to synthesize omnidirectional PDPs from directional measurements. The presented solution shows promise in myriad applications, including precise position location and distributed systems that require sub-nanosecond timing accuracy and synchronization among components.