First-order-reflection MIMO channel model for 60 GHz NLOS indoor WLAN systems

Wireless communications employing 60 GHz millimeter wave are quite attractive recently due to the huge clean unlicensed bandwidth (up to 7 GHz) in this frequency band. In this paper, aiming at increasing channel capacity and improving the reliability of non-line-of-sight (NLOS) indoor wireless communications, we focus on a first-order-reflection multiple input multiple output (MIMO) model for 60 GHz wireless local area network (WLAN) systems based on the short-range indoor scenario provided by IEEE Std 802.11ad. Considering the special physical properties of 60 GHz millimeter wave in such scenario, we use large scale planar antenna arrays at both transmitter and receiver to eliminate link level interference. The antenna arrays are divided into several sub-arrays and each sub-array is considered as a high-gain steerable directional antenna unit. The essential characteristics of the physical layer of this model is to adjust these antenna units along different first-order-reflection clusters from walls or ceiling simultaneously at both transmitter and receiver to get several parallel channel links. System level simulation results demonstrate that the proposed model with multiple first-order-reflection links can increase the channel capacity for several times compared to the original model in this scenario.