An Experimental Study of E-Band Transmission Performance over 52-Kilometer Terrestrial Links

The E-band millimeter-wave (mm-wave), i.e., at the 71-76 GHz and 81-86 GHz frequency bands, has a potential of providing fiber-equivalent capacities in long-range wireless backhauls. Before designing and deploying such systems, we need to understand E-band long-range propagation properties and transmission performance based on a large number of experiments. In the paper, we report our recent experimental study of 72-74 GHz E-band transmissions over 52-km terrestrial links. Particularly, we focus on received signal strength and its variations, polarization properties, multipath effects and achievable rates. The results show that atmospheric conditions along the long-distance line-of-sight (LOS) path greatly affect E-band propagation. Atmospheric turbulence may cause severe signal fading, even when there is no rain. Despite that, channel depolarization is found to be relatively low, and no strong multipath is observed, which favors polarization multiplexing. Using below 1-GHz bandwidth, uncoded data rates can reach 3.6 Gbps in co-polarized single-input single-output (SISO) links. The experimental results are useful for E-band system design in long-range backhaul scenarios.