TY - GEN
T1 - mmWave on a Farm
T2 - 19th Annual IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communication, and Networking, SECON 2022
AU - Nie, Shuai
AU - Lunar, Mohammad Mosiur
AU - Bai, Geng
AU - Ge, Yufeng
AU - Pitla, Santosh
AU - Koksal, Can Emre
AU - Vuran, Mehmet C.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is partly supported by NSF grants ECCS-2030272 and OIA-2044049. The authors would like to thank experiment site personnel D. Scoby (ENREEC), S. Hoff (RMF), and P. Jasa (RMF) for their support in conducting experiments at the corresponding sites. The authors also thank P. Subedi, D. Besonen, and S. W. Shin for their help in equipment setup and field measurements.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 IEEE.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum promises high throughput links for next-generation wireless agricultural networks, which will be characterized by teams of autonomous ground vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and connected agricultural machinery. However, channel models at mmWave frequencies in agricultural environments remain elusive. Moreover, due to the dynamic crop growth behavior, agricultural field channels bear notable distinctions from urban and rural macrocellular network channels. In this work, the most extensive agricultural field experiments on the mmWave spectrum are reported and a channel model is developed to characterize the large-scale path loss, coherence bandwidth, and link quality under the effect of various environmental factors. In particular, this study investigates the effects of wind on signal-to-noise ratio, and the diffuse scattering of electromagnetic waves due to near-canopy propagation at different crop growth stages. Accordingly, (1) during the growing season, the crop canopy surface acts as a 'new ground'. This new ground creates multipath components and results in a higher path loss exponent, which is correlated with the relative height between the crop canopy surface and the radios, (2) An increase of 4 m/s in gust speed results in a half-power drop (3-dB SNR degradation) due to beam misalignment and increased scattering, (3) the channel coherence bandwidth increases as the water content in the crop decreases, and (4) the beam-level spatial consistency allows for micro-mobility support for agricultural robotic applications. It is also shown that the impacts of humidity and water vapor on the mmWave channel are insignificant in the absence of rain and irrigation. Such characteristics are fundamental for designing advanced channel estimation and signal processing algorithms in advanced agricultural Internet-of-Things solutions. The extensive experiment dataset is made public for future reproducible research (https://ieeedataport.org/documents/mmwave-farm-channel-modelingwireless-agricultural-networks-broadband-millimeter-wave).
AB - Millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum promises high throughput links for next-generation wireless agricultural networks, which will be characterized by teams of autonomous ground vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and connected agricultural machinery. However, channel models at mmWave frequencies in agricultural environments remain elusive. Moreover, due to the dynamic crop growth behavior, agricultural field channels bear notable distinctions from urban and rural macrocellular network channels. In this work, the most extensive agricultural field experiments on the mmWave spectrum are reported and a channel model is developed to characterize the large-scale path loss, coherence bandwidth, and link quality under the effect of various environmental factors. In particular, this study investigates the effects of wind on signal-to-noise ratio, and the diffuse scattering of electromagnetic waves due to near-canopy propagation at different crop growth stages. Accordingly, (1) during the growing season, the crop canopy surface acts as a 'new ground'. This new ground creates multipath components and results in a higher path loss exponent, which is correlated with the relative height between the crop canopy surface and the radios, (2) An increase of 4 m/s in gust speed results in a half-power drop (3-dB SNR degradation) due to beam misalignment and increased scattering, (3) the channel coherence bandwidth increases as the water content in the crop decreases, and (4) the beam-level spatial consistency allows for micro-mobility support for agricultural robotic applications. It is also shown that the impacts of humidity and water vapor on the mmWave channel are insignificant in the absence of rain and irrigation. Such characteristics are fundamental for designing advanced channel estimation and signal processing algorithms in advanced agricultural Internet-of-Things solutions. The extensive experiment dataset is made public for future reproducible research (https://ieeedataport.org/documents/mmwave-farm-channel-modelingwireless-agricultural-networks-broadband-millimeter-wave).
KW - Millimeter-wave
KW - agricultural propagation channel
KW - crop growth stages
KW - delay spread
KW - path loss
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85138057222&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85138057222&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/SECON55815.2022.9918595
DO - 10.1109/SECON55815.2022.9918595
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85138057222
T3 - Annual IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks workshops
SP - 388
EP - 396
BT - 2022 19th Annual IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communication, and Networking, SECON 2022
PB - IEEE Computer Society
Y2 - 20 September 2022 through 23 September 2022
ER -