Channel Modeling for Future High-Speed Railway Communication Systems: A Survey

The widespread popularity of high-speed railways (HSRs) urges a critical demand on high-data-rate railway communication services for both train operation and passenger experience. To satisfy the ever-increasing requirements, future HSR communication systems, such as long-term evolution for railway (LTE-R), fifth generation (5G) on HSR, and 5G for railway (5G-R), and corresponding transmission technologies, e.g., mobile relay, coordinated multipoint, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), and millimeter-wave (mmWave), have recently attracted much attention. Radio channel modeling is the foundation of design and evaluation of wireless systems and transmission technologies. This paper focuses on a survey of channel modeling for the future HSR communication systems. The significant requirements of future HSR channel models are highlighted, and recent advances in the HSR channel modeling are reviewed. Finally, potential research directions for future HSR channel modeling are outlined.