Discuss attenuation caused by atmospheric conditions in the mmWave band.

[10 Marks]

The mmWave frequency band is expected to be used in the next generation of wireless communications.
According to [ CITATION Con19 \l 2057 ] [ CITATION SJD74 \l 2057 ] [ CITATION Pav13 \l 2057 ],
atmospheric phenomenon & weather conditions affect mmWave propagation and can cause drastic attenuation.
Planning for mmWave must take into account attenuation caused by the following: precipitation, Fog,
Temperature and Gases present in the air.

 Precipitation

Attenuation by precipitation is often characterized by the precipitation rate and the diameter & shape of the
water droplet. The water droplet causes attenuation of the signal and if the diameter of the droplet is roughly
the same as the wavelength, scattering occurs. In [ CITATION Con19 \l 2057 ], the authors found that
changes in rain rate directly affected the received power signal and caused attenuation up to 4.2dB.
Calculations done by Setzer [ CITATION Set70 \l 2057 ] for frequencies between 2 to 300GHz shows a
rapid increase of attenuation for frequencies up to 100 GHz.

 Fog & Snow

Cloud & Fogs also defined by water droplets can cause attenuation for mmWave propagation. Path loss due
to fog is usually small however, this depends on the distribution of the size of water droplets. Fogs with
liquid water density of 0.5 – 1.0 g/m^3 can produce attenuation comparable to rain with a rate of 2.5 – 5
mm/hr [ CITATION SJD74 \l 2057 ].

 Atmospheric Gases

In the absence of fog and rain, attenuation of mmWave can occur due to absorption by oxygen, water-vapor
and other gases[ CITATION SJD74 \l 2057 ]. In [ CITATION Hos17 \l 2057 ], the author investigated the
absorption spectrum of normal air and plotted the absorption spectrum as shown below.

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 Figure 1 Absorption Spectrum of dry air

As observed from the graph, oxygen and water vapor are the main molecules that contributes to attenuation.
Particulate matter is the third contributing factor. The peaks observed occurs at the resonant frequencies of these
molecules [ CITATION Mil97 \l 2057 ]. After absorbing the EM energy, the molecules also re-radiate some of
the absorbed energy which is highly correlated with the original signal. The author in [ CITATION Hos17 \l
2057 ] investigated and tried to exploit this phenomenon, it was found that at certain frequency band, the re-
radiated signal caused an increased in spatial diversity which achieved a capacity close to theoretical limit.

Bibliography

[1] S. D. Congzheng Han*, "The Study on Characteristics of Rain Attenuation Along 28 GHz and 38 GHz
Line-of-Sight Millimeter-Wave Links," URSI AP-RASC, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 3-4, 2019.

[2] J. S. J. Dudzinsky, "Atmospheric Effects on Terrestial Millimeter-Wave Communications," Defense

Advanced Research Projects Agency, Santa-Monica, 1974.

[3] P. Nagaraj, "Impact of atmospheric impairments on mmWave based outdoor Communications," Department
of Electronics and Communication Engineering, BMS College of Engineering, India, 2013.

[4] D. E. Setzer, "Computed transmission through rain at microwave and visible frequencies," Bell System
Technical Journal, vol. 49, no. 8, pp. 1873-1892, 1970.

[5] S. A. Hoseini, "A Theoretical Study of the Effect of Molecular Absorption and Re-radiation on Millimeter
Wave and Terahertz Wireless Networking," University of New South Wales, sYDNEY, 2017.

[6] "Millimeter Wave Propagation: Spectrum Management Implications," Federal Communications

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Commission Office of Engineering and Technology New Technology Development Division, Washington
DC, 1997.

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