Radioelectric propagation in a deciduous tree forest at wireless networks frequency bands

Nowadays, the installation of wireless networks in rural environments is growing by leaps and bounds: WiMAX, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ZigBee form the most typical wireless network deployments in the countryside. When installing a wireless network, the main problem is how to know the range of coverage of each installed device. At the moment, there is a lack of propagation studies at 2.4, 3.5 and 5.8 GHz in a peer-to-peer configuration at rural environments. These studies may help to perform an estimation on the range coverage. Thus, the distance between neighbour devices could be maximized and the budget, to cover a predefined area, could be reduced to the minimum. The same deciduous oak tree forest has been analysed into two different situations: in summer, plenty of vegetation and leaves; and in winter, without leaves. A lot of measured received power samples were gathered in this environment around more than 60 trees in order to obtain a general propagation equation for these ambiances. Finally, a comparison between both situations is presented.