Path Loss Measurements of User Equipment to Access Point Communications at 60 GHz

In this paper the impact of the user's body on the communication link at 60 GHz is empirically investigated in a typical indoor office scenario. During the measurements, several receivers, acting as access points (APs) and placed at ceiling locations, simultaneously recorded the signal power level transmitted by a user equipment (UE), which was either placed on a tripod or held by an individual. The path loss was investigated for Line of Sight (LoS) and Non-Line of Sight (NLoS) situations, the latter produced when the user's body obscured the optical path between the UE and APs. Results showed that changes in UE orientation led to significant differences in received signal power level (as great as 9.4 dB), even when the transmitter was placed on a tripod (i.e. without the human body present). This was then exacerbated when the individual held the transmitter. Here the maximum difference in the received signal power between UE orientations was 15.1 dB. It was also found that the path loss exponent was lower than 2 when the UE was in front of the AP.