Directional Analysis of the Radio Wave Propagation through Foliage

This technical document is a preliminary report on the study of the foliage influence on the radio wave propagation in cellular scenarios. The purpose is to evaluate the dispersion and attenuation caused by vegetations in mobile radio channels, hence we employed a channel sounder to measure received signals behind dense vegetations in the rural areas in Kanagawa, Japan. The transmitter sends a 50 MHz OFDM signal with a settable FFT window at 2.2 GHz. At the receiver a cylindrical array antenna composed of 4 rings of patched elements was used to collect the received propagation paths through the array antenna switch. The preliminary results of the channel dispersion are delivered here, whereas the ultimate goal of this study is to evaluate or modify the existing empirical and analytical propagation through vegetation prediction models.