Directional channel characteristics in elevation and azimuth at an urban macrocell base station

The objective of this paper is to improve the knowledge on directional channel characteristics at the base station, particularly concerning elevation. For this purpose a channel measurement campaign has been performed. A powerful new method for super-resolution channel estimation has been used to get a detailed picture of the directional characteristics of the channel. This has further led to improved knowledge of when processes like diffraction over rooftops and/or specular reflections are important. The findings herein have been incorporated into a model for the elevation angle dispersion which is proposed as an extension to some commonly used directional channel models such as the ITU-IMT-Advanced model.