On Millimeter Wave and THz Mobile Radio Channel for Smart Rail Mobility

As a widely acknowledged efficient and green transportation model, rail traffic is expected to evolve into a new era of “smart rail mobility” whereby infrastructure, trains, and travelers will be interconnected to achieve optimized mobility, higher safety, and lower costs. Thus, a seamless high-data rate wireless connectivity with up to dozens of gigahertz bandwidth is required. Such a huge bandwidth requirement motivates the exploration of the underutilized millimeter (mm) wave and terahertz (THz) bands. In this paper, the motivations for developing millimeter wave and THz communications for railway are clarified by first defining the applications and scenarios required for smart rail mobility. Ray-tracing simulations at 100 GHz imply that to form high-gain directional antenna beams, dynamic beamforming strategies and advanced handover design are critical for the feasibility of THz communications to enable smart rail mobility.