Abstract

This paper focuses on giving a simplified molecular absorption loss model for a 275–400 GHz frequency band, which has significant potential for variety of future short and medium range communications. The band offers large theoretical data rates with reasonable path loss to theoretically allow even up to kilometer long link distances when sufficiently high gain antennas are used. The molecular absorption loss in the band requires a large number of parameters from spectroscopic databases, and, thus, the exact modeling of its propagation characteristics is demanding. In this paper, we provide a simple, yet accurate absorption model, which can be utilized to predict the absorption loss at the above frequency band. The model is valid at a regular atmospheric pressure, it depends on the distance, the relative humidity, and the frequency. The existing simplified model by ITU does not cover frequencies above 350 GHz and has more complexity than our proposed model. The molecular absorption loss increases exponentially with the distance, decreasing the utilizable bandwidth in the vicinity of the absorption lines. We provide a model to approximate the window widths at the above frequency band. This model depends on the distance, the relative humidity, the frequency, and the maximum tolerable loss. It is shown to be very accurate below one kilometer link distances.