Experimentally Characterizing Atmospheric Turbulence Effects on Millimeterwave Propagation

This paper introduces a novel method of experimentally characterizing atmospheric turbulence effects on millimeter wave propagation in a controlled laboratory environment. A large fan array wind tunnel with 36x36 individually programmable dual-fan units is used to create turbulent flows over a controlled temperature gradient. A W-band (95 GHz) radar is used to propagate RF energy through this turbulence while meteorological parameters such as wind speed, temperature and humidity are measured by co-located sensors. The effect of temperature gradients and wind speeds are shown to increase and shift the measured power spectrum of the radar signal. This experimental setup can be used to verify and expand on existing scintillation theory, and generate a statistical channel model to better understand the effects of turbulence on millimeter wave propagation.