Industrial Indoor Measurements from 2-6 GHz for the 3GPP-NR and QuaDRiGa Channel Model

Providing reliable low latency wireless links for advanced manufacturing and processing systems is a vision of Industry 4.0. Developing, testing and rating requires accurate models of the radio propagation channel. The current 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) new radio (NR) model as well as the quasi deterministic radio channel generator (QuaDRiGa) lack the propagation parameters for the industrial indoor scenario. To close this gap, measurements were conducted at 2.37 GHz and 5.4 GHz at operational Siemens premises in Nuremberg, Germany. Furthermore, the campaign was planned to allow the test and parameterization of new features of the QuaDRiGa channel model such as support for device-to-device (D2D) radio links and spatial consistency. A total of 5.9 km measurement track was used to extract the statistical model parameters for line of sight (LOS) and Non-LOS propagation conditions. It was found that the metallic walls and objects in the halls create a rich scattering environment, where a large number of multipath components arrive at the receiver from all directions. This leads to a robust communication link, provided that the transceivers can handle the interference. The extracted parameters can be used in geometric-stochastic channel models such as QuaDRiGa to support simulation studies, both on link and system level.