Vehicle-to-Vehicle Channel Measurements and Power Domain Modeling in Mountainous Plateau Environments for Emergency Communications

This paper presents systematic experimental and related analytical studies for the accurate channel modeling of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) radio channels in mountainous plateau environments (MPEs) at the 376MHz band which is allocated for emergency communications. The measurement campaign has been conducted in the Ailao Mountains (Yunnan Province of China) and the influence of this mountainous environment on the radio channel characteristics in the power domain has been thoroughly investigated. The time-varying characteristics of the measured V2V radio channels have identified the stationarity time based on the local scattering function as a prerequisite for accurate modeling. Furthermore, Akaike’s information criteria and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests have revealed that the Weibull probability distribution function is the best fit for the measured data. With the Weibull shaping parameter, the line of sight (LOS) and non-LOS (NLOS) channels can be conveniently and accurately classified. As large variations of the LOS probability and the shape parameter over long communication distances and LOS/NLOS conditions have been observed, an analytical approach using a 3rd order sum of sinusoid functions has been used to model them. Through this model, the maximum distance for LOS communications has been derived directly from the measured data. The large-scale propagation properties, including path loss, shadow fading, and shadow fading correlation, have been thoroughly studied, and accurate path loss models specifically for the MPEs have been proposed. Moreover, a new shadow fading correlation model has been presented. Compared to previously known models, this model is more accurate and more suitable for long-distance emergency communication scenarios.