Attenuation of Several Common Building Materials: Millimeter-Wave Frequency Bands 28, 73, and 91 GHz

Future cellular systems will make use of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) frequency bands. Many users in these bands are located indoors, i.e., inside buildings, homes, and offices. The typical building material attenuations in these high-frequency ranges are of interest for link budget calculations. In this article, we report on a collaborative measurement campaign to find the attenuation of several typical building materials in three potential mm-wave bands (28, 73, and 91 GHz). Using directional antennas, we took multiple measurements at multiple locations using narrow-band and wideband signals and averaged out residual small-scale fading effects. The materials include clear glass, drywall (plasterboard), plywood, acoustic ceiling tile, and cinder blocks. The specific attenuations range from approximately 0.5 dB/cm for ceiling tile at 28 GHz to approximately 19 dB/cm for clear glass at 91 GHz.