Speaker
Description
High-resolution information on the space-time variability of rainfall is key for weather prediction, water management, agriculture and traffic control. However, in many areas around the world, rainfall data are not available at the required resolution. The need for rainfall information is only expected to increase during the coming decades in view of global change, with its projected growth of the world’s population and increased occurrence and intensity of hydro-meteorological extremes. One solution toward meeting the identified information gap has been the use of legacy networks of microwave links employed for cellular communication as an “opportunistic” source of rainfall information. The 5th generation (5G) telecommunication system being rolled out globally could provide a new opportunity with even more data, particularly for densely populated areas around the world, which might improve spatiotemporal resolution (and other benefits).
However, before such a sensing network can be achieved, fundamental research needs to be carried out to understand the relationship between 5G radio access network (RAN) parameters and weather variables, in particular rainfall rate. This is exactly what 5G+-Weather aims to achieve. Using the 5G infrastructure, including fixed wireless access and user links, a much finer spatial resolution (100-200m) compared to existing resources (1-10 km) can be obtained, while the propagation properties of the 5G mm-wave frequency bands provide an opportunity to determine different weather conditions like the type, size and shape of precipitation particles (hydrometeors), as well as fog and humidity.
The aim of this project is to establish fundamental knowledge on the relationship of 5G RAN parameters and weather conditions for high-resolution, high-accuracy precipitation monitoring. As opposed to the use of backhaul connections in legacy systems, we will investigate this for fixed wireless access and user connections in 5G systems and beyond. To achieve this, a unique system has been designed and is being rolled out at the time of writing. The system, designed by TU Eindhoven, consists of one transmitter and two receivers of 5G mm-wave signals. As opposed to the information usually available for opportunistic sensing, it is designed to operate like 5G base-stations and handsets, but with access to the raw data. Using this, we can estimate channel impulse responses, providing the time-domain complex delay profile of the wireless link. In other words, the system gives us access to both amplitude and phase, over a 1 to 20 MHz band in the 29 GHz range, at a high temporal resolution. Using this newly designed sytem, we intend to collect data in an outdoor setting with co-located meteorological sensors (rain gauges, disdrometers, micro rain radar) for a prolonged period to study which types of information can be obtained from such signals.
In this presentation, we will showcase the design of this outdoor system, as well as discuss its relation to 5G and 6G mobile communication systems and their potential for opportunistic sensing. Finally, we will have a (near) live demo to illustrate the data obtained from our system.