Channel Characterization at 2.53 GHz for Wireless Sensor Networks in Railway Environments

This work presents measurements and characterizations of a 2.53 GHz wireless propagation channel for radio links in railway onboard applications. Wireless technologies have a great potential use in train control and structural health monitoring applications; however, in harsh propagation environments they suffer from severe signal degradation, including delay spread, deep fading and Doppler spread. The aim of this work is to analyze the signal propagation in railway environments by means of a measurement campaign at 2.53 GHz, taking into account antenna locations both inside and below the train car. Results from wideband and narrowband analysis are shown, focusing on delay spread, small-scale envelope fading distribution and Doppler spectrum.