An Empirical Study of Urban Macro Propagation at 10, 18 and 28 GHz

This paper investigates the propagation characteristics of the urban macro cells at centimeter-wave (cmWave) frequencies, in particular at 10, 18 and 28 GHz. The measurement are performed at several Tx locations and heights, in both LOS and NLOS conditions, and with distance up to 1,400 m. The distance-dependent mean path loss and shadow fading's standard deviation (std) are extracted for all cases based on a single-slope path loss model, and offered here for quick determination of link budget and system capacity. The results show the potential usage of the cmWave band for mobile cellular services in the years to come: The NLOS path loss slopes at 10 and 18 GHz are not much different from the 2 GHz reference, and the corresponding offsets are in order of 20-23 dB for 25 m Tx height. This gap is expected to be overcome by the usage of high-gain miniaturized steerable antenna, which is feasible due to the reduced antenna aperture size at the cmWave band. Like the 2 GHz band, the shadow fading's std) is within 6~dB for NLOS. The effect of Tx height is clearly shown in NLOS scenario. At 10 GHz, for example, 7.5 dB gain could be achieved by raising the Tx antenna from 15 m (below average roof-top) to 25 m (above roof-top), or 23.4 dB if the Tx height is elevated to 54 m.