A Standardized Path Loss Model for the GSM-Railway Based High-Speed Railway Communication Systems

High-speed railway (HSR) has been widely introduced to meet the increasing demand for passenger rail travel. While it provides more and more conveniences to the people, the huge cost of the HSR has laid big burden on the government finance. Reducing the cost of HSR has been necessary and urgent. Optimizing the arrangement of the base stations (BS) by improving the prediction of the communication link is one of the most effective methods, which could reduce the number of the BSs to a reasonable number. However, it requires a carefully developed propagation model, which has been largely neglected before in the research on the HSR. In this paper, we propose a standardized path loss model for HSR channels based on an extensive measurement campaign in 4594 HSR cells of the "Zhengzhou-Xian" HSR line. The measurements are conducted using a practically deployed and operative GSM-Railway (GSM-R) system to reflect the real conditions of the HSR channels. The proposed model is validated by the measurements conducted in another operative railway - "Beijing-Shanghai" HSR line. The results are helpful for the HSR communications system designers to gain a better tool in the system planning, and propagation researchers to assess where the most pressing needs in the modeling of HSR channels lie.