Analysis of the Impact of Antenna Height on Path Loss in Factory Scenarios at 3.5 GHz

The rise of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has made factories one of the main target scenarios for indoor 5G network deployments. Therefore, radio channel models for industrial environments have been already included in the 3GPP and ITU-R standards. These models account for different parameters such as factory clutter types, TX-RX distance, frequency, types of antennas or simplified antenna topologies. However, they do not explicitly consider the antenna height as a path loss modeling parameter. In this paper, we analyze the results from an extensive measurement campaign performed in two operational factory halls at a large automotive factory in Germany for different TX/RX antenna configurations, and elaborate on the observed path loss trends. A preliminary modelling attempt based on simple antenna height gain correction factors is also presented, which is able to capture the dynamics observed in the measurements.