Rain Rate and Rain Attenuation Over Millimeter Waves in Tropical Regions Based on Real Measurements

Abstract

Rain attenuation is one of the major issues facing the propagation of electromagnetic waves in the Fifth Generation (5G) networks. The case becomes worse with the millimeter-wave (mmW) bands as they are characterized by small waveform and high path loss. The close physical size of the raindrops with the wavelength of the mmW bands leads to severe degradation in the received signal strength. Thus, this paper studies the impact of rain rate and rain attenuation on the 38 GHz communication link. The study conducted based on real measurement data collected in a tropical region (Malaysia) for continuously one year. The annual analyzed results show a noticeable impact caused by the rain. It is observed that at 0.01 percentage of the time the average annual rain rate is 119 mm/hr. Regarding the rain attenuation, it has been observed that the horizontal polarization (HP) is affected by the rain more than the vertical polarization (VP). The specific rain attenuation of the measured data is 15 dB and 18 dB for VP and HP at 38 GHz, respectively.