Dual-polarized spatial-temporal propagation measurement and modeling in uma o2i scenario at 3.5 GHz

Outdoor-to-indoor (O2I) coverage in urban areas by using the sub-6 GHz (sub-6G) band is important in the fifth generation (5G) mobile communication system. The spatial-temporal propagation characteristics in different polarizations in the 5G spectrum are crucial for the network coverage. In this paper, we measured the urban macrocell (UMa) O2I channels at 3.5 GHz in the space, time, and polarization domains simultaneously. The channel sounder utilized two ±45° polarized antenna arrays. The transmitter (TX) was placed on the rooftop of a five-storey building to emulate a base station and the receiver (RX) was moved in the corridors on different floors in another building to emulate user equipments (UEs). We obtained the small-scale parameters of excess delay, power, and azimuth/elevation of arrival (AoA/EoA) of individual multipath components (MPCs), the propagation profiles of azimuth/elevation power spectrum (APS/EPS) and power delay profile (PDP), and the large-scale parameters including azimuth/elevation spread of arrival (ASA/ESA) and delay spread (DS). Based on the measurement results, we propose the lifted-superposed Laplace distribution (LS-Laplace) function and lifted-superposed normal distribution (LS-Normal) function to model the APS and EPS, respectively, and a three-phase model for the PDP. We find that the ASA and ESA follow the lognormal distribution and the DS has a Rayleigh distribution. We also reveal the impact of surrounding environments and polarization on the channel propagation profiles and statistical characteristics. The measurement results and channel models in this paper provide reference for the design and deployment of the 5G system to exploit the spatial and polarization diversities in the UMa O2I scenario.