Statistical Channel Model of Wideband Sub-THz Radio Propagation in Indoor Factories at 142 GHz: Toward 6G Industrial Wireless Networks

This paper presents the first sub-Terahertz (THz) statistical channel model for the indoor factory (InF) scenario based on an extensive dataset of radio propagation characterization in factory buildings at 142 GHz. The dataset is built from the radio propagation measurements conducted at 142 GHz in four diverse factories during 2021 and 2022, including 82 transmitter-receiver (TX-RX) location pairs covering propagation distances between 5 and 87 m in both line-of-sight (LOS) and non-LOS (NLOS) environments. The measurements employed rotatable directional antennas with 8° half power beam width at both TX and RX, gathering over 75,000 directional power delay profiles, which provide complete multipath delay and angular statistics. For accurate multipath temporal and angular parameter estimation, this paper introduces a novel antenna de-embedded multipath extraction (ADME) with degree-level precision. The parameters required for channel response generation are derived through distribution fitting and validated using goodness-of-fit metrics. The proposed statistical channel model is integrated into the open-source channel simulator NYUSIM. The simulated and measured channel statistics show a solid agreement with differences within one ns in root-mean-square (RMS) delay spread and within 1° RMS angular spread. This sub-THz InF statistical channel model may contribute critical insights on channel modeling development above 100 GHz within standardization bodies such as 3GPP and IEEE 802.