Pole Blockage in MmWave Railway Communications: Early Detection Based on LoS Cluster Channels

This paper proposes an early detection method of the pole blockage for millimeter-wave (mmWave) railway communications. In this method, the (line-of-sight) LoS cluster power gain is used for early detection instead of the total received power to reduce the effect of the other scatterers in dynamic railway scenarios. Moreover, the power difference calculation and triggering value searching steps are introduced to handle issues such as time-varying mean power gain, accidental power losses, and so on. Simulation and measurement cases are performed in railway communication scenarios at 60 GHz for validation. The results show that the proposed method can early detect the blockage area before a significant power attenuation occurs. The performance of the proposed detection method is also compared with that of the existing method.