60 GHz Wireless Link Within Metal Enclosures: Channel Measurements and System Analysis

Abstract: Wireless channel measurement results for 60 GHz within a closed metal cabinet are provided. A metal cabinet is chosen to emulate the environment within a mechatronic system, which have metal enclosures in general. A frequency domain sounding technique is used to measure the wireless channel for different volumes of the metal enclosure, considering both line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios. Large-scale and small-scale characteristics of the wireless channel are extracted in order to build a comprehensive channel model. In contrast to conventional indoor channels at 60 GHz, the channel in the metal enclosure is highly reflective resulting in a rich scattering environment with a significantly large root-mean-square (RMS) delay spread. Based on the obtained measurement results, the bit error rate (BER) performance is evaluated for a wideband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system.