Estimation of materials characteristics from power measurements at 60 GHz

The RACE-MBS (Mobile Broadband System) project deals with the development of a mobile communications system at the 60 GHz band, which means that its propagation models, both for indoor and outdoor environments, have to be developed for that specific frequency band. The article presents estimated values, at 60 GHz, for the electrical characteristics of several building materials (only for flat surfaces), namely the relative dielectric constant, the loss tangent, and the attenuation coefficient. The estimations are based on power reflection and transmission measurements of the material samples, and the multiple internal reflections in a dielectric slab are used as a model. A least-square approach is used to obtain the numerical values of the parameters from the measurements. The attenuation coefficient ranges from 1 dB/cm to 8 dB/cm.