NYU WIRELESS is at the forefront of radio propagation science. Through generous research funding of NYU WIRELESS Industrial Affiliate member companies, and the National Science Foundation, NYU WIRELESS is able to maintain a strong and productive on-going activity to provide its Affiliate members the raw and processed data for new frequency bands and new use cases that formed the basis of 5G, and which will form the future of 6G and beyond.
NYU WIRELESS has conducted pioneering measurement campaigns to generate fundamental knowledge of wireless propagation across the radio sprectrum, spanning the lower and upper mid-band frequencies [1]-[8] to millimeter wave (mmWave) [9]-[13] and sub-Terahertz (sub-THz) [14]-[16]. mmWave conventionally refers to frequencies between 30 and 300 gigahertz (GHz) and THz to frequencies between 300 GHz and 3 THz. The term sub-THz is now widely used to refer to frequencies between 100 to 300 GHz. Currently, very little is known about the radio channel inside buildings or in the urban, suburban or rural outdoor settings where future cellular, Wi-fi, and fixed fiber-like radio links will operate.

Measurements in the lower and upper mid-band

In Spring 2024, NYU WIRELESS conducted extensive indoor, outdoor, and factory propagation measurements in the upper mid-band spectrum at 6.75 GHz and 16.95 GHz [1]-[8]. Rigorous calibration and time synchronization techniques were applied to ensure reproducibility and to benchmark the measured statistics against 3GPP channel models for indoor hotspot (InH), factory (InF), and urban microcell (UMi) [3],[4],[5],[9]. There is tremendous interest in the mid-band spectrum as it offers an optimal tradeoff between coverage and capacity for 6G, however, propagation characteristics have been largely unexplored at these frequencies.

Absolute timing with PTP-based synchronization

The NYU Channel Sounder—for the Spring 2024 campaign—employed a Precision Time Protocol (PTP) based timing synchronization to remove drift errors and obtain absolute propagation delays for multipath traveling from TX to RX with sub-nanosecond accuracy [14]. The synchronization relied on PTP to discipline Rubidium clocks at TX and RX and a successive drift correction algorithm using a reference multipath to remove errors in propagation delay for captured multipath. Further details can be found at:

Need for a unified format for site-specific and statistical channel modeling

A key innovation from the propagation measurements is the introduction of a standardized machine-readable point-data format, which enables propagation data from various frequencies, environments, and institutions to be seamlessly consolidated [4],[8]. Each entry in the dataset corresponds to a specific transmitter–receiver (TX–RX) location pair, summarizing measured channel parameters in tabular form. This modular structure facilitates multi-institution collaboration and supports advanced applications such as AI-based channel modeling, machine learning-driven scenario analysis, and cross-band extrapolation.
Together with NYU WIRELESS’s prior mmWave and sub-THz campaigns—spanning 28 GHz to 142 GHz—these upper mid-band efforts contribute to an expanding terabyte-scale repository of raw and processed propagation data. These datasets underpin research tools, such as NYUSIM and NYURay, support 3GPP and Next Generation Alliance modeling activities, and advance emerging use cases such as positioning, wireless sensing, and cognitive networking.

Upcoming campaigns

Looking ahead, NYU WIRELESS will extend measurement activities to under explored bands in the radio spectrum, including lower mid-band (3.7 GHz), and sub-THz frequencies (180 GHz atmospheric absorption band, 280 GHz, and 285 GHz). These future campaigns will contribute to NYU’s valuable propagation database of over a terabyte, generating standardized point-data, and contribute to AI-integrated channel modeling, and the design of 6G systems that can fully exploit new frequency bands.