Effects of Fire Plumes From Pine Needles on Small-Scale Fading in Radiowave Propagation

In this article, radiowave fading caused by fire plumes due to the burning of heaps pine needles is studied. Detailed characterization impact in terms excess loss yielded at UHF frequencies, mainly L-band, when considering two different ignition sources, also presented. The implemented small-scale scenario composed a 1 $\times 1$ m metallic grid covered with 0.6 kg needle fuel bed that was placed right above circular and linear gas burner mimic an underbrush scenario. propagation phenomena were evaluated through specific wideband measurements as developed while intersecting radio path antennas’ boresight. Results demonstrate changes medium strongly influenced plume, which ultimately becomes (partly) ionized. Deep fades up 12 dB below median levels frequencies during short period time, more intense, measured. We obtained overall 2 frequency range from GHz relatively (below m). A time-domain analysis allowed us expand these results yielding values direct component than 3 presence fire. Extending findings presented article real-scale scenario, 20 deeper nulls are ought be expected, sets rationale motivation pursue future work on topic, practical relevance mission-critical communication networks planning, such as, but not limited to, LTE Public-Safety 5G use cases.