Abstract
Maintaining communications during major hurricanes is critically important for public safety operations by first responders. This requires accurate knowledge of the propagation channel during hurricane conditions. In this work, the authors have carried out ultra-wideband (UWB) channel measurements during hurricane conditions ranging from Category-1 to Category-4, generated at the wall of wind facility of Florida International University. Time-domain P410 radios are used for channel measurements. From the empirical data analysis in time domain, they developed an UWB statistical broadband channel model for hurricanes. In particular, they characterise the effects of rain and wind speed on large-scale and small-scale UWB propagation parameters considering both line-of-sight (LOS) and non-LOS (NLOS) links. Their experimental results show that number of multipath components reduce considerably with wind driven rain (WDR) and with link obstruction (NLOS scenario). Several remarks are also provided that can help explain the behaviour of UWB propagation characteristics under WDR.