Evaluation of angular dispersion for various propagation environments in emerging 5G systems

Angular dispersion is the effect of a multi-path propagation observed in received signals. An assessment of this phenomenon is particularly important from the viewpoint of emerging fifth generation (5G) communication systems. In these systems, using the beam-forming and massive multiple-input multiple-output antenna arrays are planned. This phenomenon also has a negative impact on direction finding and older generation communication systems used in an urban environment. In this paper, we present the angular dispersion evaluation for various propagation environments based on simulation studies. This analysis is carried out for different environment types defined in the 3GPP standard model for a selected frequency. In this case, the angular spread is determinated based on the power angular spectrum. This parameter is the basis for the influence evaluation of the propagation environment on the received signal angular dispersion. Keywords—angle spread; angular dispersion; multipath propagation; multi-elliptical propagation model; propagation environment type; antenna pattern; gain; directional antenna; nonline-of-sight conditions; simulation; milimeter wave.