2020 IEEE/CIC International Conference on Communications in China (ICCC Workshops)
An Improved CDL Model for 5G Millimeter Wave
Communication in a Substation Scenario
Zihao Fu, Hao Cui, Xiongwen Zhao Yang Wang, Zhihui Wang
School of Electrical and Electronic China Electric Power Research Institute
Engineering
North China Electric Power University yangw@epri.sgcc.com.cn
Beijing, China
18810555907@163.com
Abstract—Clustered delay line (CDL) model is a link-level
evaluation model with the characteristics of low complexity
and relatively low accuracy. In this paper, a modeling method
is proposed to improve the accuracy and applicability of
existing CDL models in Third Generation Partnership Project
(3GPP). To validate the proposed model, 28 GHz millimeter
wave channel measurement was conducted in an outdoor
substation scenarios, and the improved CDL model is
established by identifying different clusters. The accuracy and
applicability of the improved CDL model are validated by
validating large scale channel parameters and power delay
profile. The provided results show that the improved CDL
model can match the actual scenario well. This work offers an
accurate and relatively simple channel modeling method for
specific scenario, which can be used in link-level simulation
and subsequent construction of the power Internet of things.
Keywords—CDL model, millimeter wave channel, clustering,
delay spread, angle spread
I. INTRODUCTION
Industrial internet is a hot topic in resent years. As a
important part of industrial internet, energy internet has been
paid great attention in worldwide. The State Grid of China
has proposed to build the power Internet of things (IoT) in
the coming years. IoT has become one of the mainstream
emerging communication paradigms that links the Internet
with every physical device, and the fifth generation (5G)
technology may take important role in the power IoT to meet
its growing data services [1].
In the recent years, lots of study and research has been
done in 5G wireless channel measurements, modeling and
simulations, and 5G channel model standardization were
done by International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and
Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) [2][3].
However, the models are almost only suitable for public
networks. To meet the growing data need and business
requirements in power industries, 5G channel modeling in
typical scenarios is essential for subsequent system
performance simulation, evaluation as well as network
planning and so on [4].
So far, several organizations have carried out channel
modeling and standardization. 3GPP has put forward the
Spatial Channel Model (SCM) [5], which is used for system-
level simulations. In Wireless World Initiative New Radio
This work is supported by Smart Gird Technical Project “Evolution of
Power Wireless Network and Application Analysis of 4G and 5G
Technologies (5700-201955234A-0-0-00)”. It’s also supported by the
National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant No.
61771194 and 61931001, respectively.
Authorized licensed use limited to: Auckland University of Technology. Downloaded
Lanxin Qiu, Yanbo Wang
State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power
Beijing, China Company Information &
Telecommunication Branch
Hangzhou, China
qiulanxin@zj.sgcc.com.cn
(WINNER) channel model [6], both Geometric-based
Stochastic Channel Model (GSCM) and reduced-variability
clustered delay line (CDL) models are presented, including
indoor, urban macro-cell and micro-cell scenarios, etc. In
3GPP TR38.901 [7], the GSCM based modeling methods
from 0.5 to 100 GHz are given. Based on the WINNER
models, QuaDRiGa [8] was proposed to improve the 3D
characteristics of the existing channel model.
Compared with the GSCM based channel models
mentioned above, the CDL models are simpler by offering
well-defined radio channels with fixed parameters, and the
simulation results of CDL models are relatively reliable. In
3GPP SCM CDL models, link level parameters, i.e. power
and delay, are listed for calibration purposes. However, SCM
CDL models only apply to limited cases such as pedestrians
and vehicles. In WINNER CDL models, angle parameters,
Ricean-K factor, moving speed of the mobile station and
more scenarios are added to improve CDL model.
Furthermore, in 3GPP TR 38,901, the CDL models support
the full frequency range from 0.5 GHz to 100 GHz with a
maximum bandwidth of 2 GHz, and each CDL model can be
scaled in delay and angles to achieve desired delay spread
and angle spread. However, the parameters in 3GPP CDL
models are still fixed, which can not matching the specific
scenario. In summary, CDL models has the characteristics of
low complexity, relatively wide application and relatively
low accuracy. Besides, the current CDL models are only
studied for public networks, and are not applicable to
industrial internet scenarios, such as substation, railway
station and industrial plants. Further improvement is needed
to improve the applicability of current CDL models.
In this work, based on the CDL models in 3GPP TR
38.901, an improved modeling method is proposed to match
specific scenarios. To validate the proposed model, 28 GHz
millimeter wave channel measurement was carried out at a
220 kV high-voltage substation. The multipath components
(MPCs) are extracted from the measured data and then
clustered by multipath component distance (MCD) algorithm.
By identifying different clusters, the improved CDL model
can be established. The accuracy and applicability of the
improved CDL model are validated by large-scale channel
parameters (LSCPs), including delay spread (DS) and angle
spread (AS). Besides, the derived power delay profile (PDP)
is plotted and compared with the measured one. The results
show that the improved CDL model can match the actual
scenario well, and it can be flexibly applied in other
scenarios. This work offers a simple channel modeling
method for specific scenario, increases the accuracy while
keeping the modeling process relatively simple, which can
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 2020 IEEE/CIC International Conference on Communications in China (ICCC Workshops)

be used in link-level simulation and subsequent construction
of the power IoT.
II. MEASUREMENT ENVIRONMENT AND CAMPAIGNS
In this work, 28 GHz millimeter wave channel
measurement was carried out at a 220 kV high-voltage
substation located in Qingdao, China, which is a typical
electrical scenario, and a simplified map of measurement
environment is shown in Fig. 1. The scatterers between the
transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) include the primary and
secondary equipment in the substation, such as various types
of wires, current and voltage transformers, trees and walls,
etc.
In the measurement, the Keysight (KS) time-domain
channel sounder [9][10] is used to record the channel
response. The heights of RX and TX are 2.0 m and 2.5 m,
respectively. An omni-directional antenna with 3 dB gain is
used at the TX, and a 8 elements uniform linear array (ULA-
8) with 4 dB gain is used at the RX. The array elements of
the ULA-8 antenna are connected with eight individual radio
frequency (RF) channels at the KS receiver. By translation
the ULA-8 antenna 8 times horizontally, a 1×64 virtual ULA
(VULA) can be generated and then a virtual single-input
multiple-output (SIMO) system is formed. The spacing
between every two adjacent antenna elements of the VULA
is 5.36 mm, which is the half wavelength of electromagnetic
wave at 28GHz.
During the measurement, the TX is fixed and the RX is
placed on a trolley, moving along a line-of-sight (LoS) route.
It can be seen from Fig.1 that the length of the route is 150 m
and there are totally 27 measurement positions which are
marked in yellow circle. The distance between two adjacent
measurement points is 5 m, note that the distance between
positions 7 and 8 is 20 m. Besides, Table 1 summarizes the
specific measurement parameters.
III. MODELING STEPS OF THE IMPROVED CDL MODEL
In this section, the calculation method of channel
parameters is presented first, then the MCD based clustering
algorithm is introduced. Finally, based on the CDL models in
3GPP TR 38.901, an improved CDL model is proposed and
elaborated.
A. GSCM Channel Parameter Calculation Methods
Delay spread and angle spread are two important
parameters in GSCM channel model to describe the
complexity of wireless signal transmission. In order to
calculate those parameters, the first step is to obtain the
small-scale channel parameters (SSCPs) of MPCs for each
measurement position.
In this work, a virtual SIMO with M antenna elements is
built and Space-Alternative Generalized Expectation-
maximization (SAGE) [11][12] algorithm is utilized to
estimate SSCPs:
s ( ρl ,k )  sk ,1 ( ρl ) ,...,sk , M ( ρl )
T
(1)
 c(l ,k )αl ,k exp( j 2 l ,k )u (t  τ l ,k )
where s(ρl,k) is the receive signal of a single wave in the kth
measurement positions, and ρl,k=[τl,k, φl,k, νl,k, αl,k] is the
estimated SSCPs set of the lth path, where τ is delay, φ is the
azimuth angle of arrivals (AoA), ν is Doppler frequency and
α is the amplitude. u(t) is the reference signal of the SIMO
system. The steering vector c(φ) can be expressed as
  j2π 
 c1 ( )   f 1 ( ) exp( λ ) e( ) ,r1   (2)
 
c( )        

cM ( )  f M ( ) exp( j2π 
) e( ) ,rM 
  λ 

where r1, r2...rM are the antenna positions of the M elements
in Cartesian coordinate system, e(φ) is the unit direction
vector, 〈 〉 is inner product and f is the complex antenna
pattern. The large-scale channel parameters can be calculated
through statistical analysis of ρl,k.
In delay domain, average excess delay  k is the first order
statistical result, which is expressed as
Lk Lk

a 2

l ,k l ,k P 
l ,k l ,k
k  l 1
 l 1 (3)
Lk Lk

a
l 1
2
l ,k Pl 1
l ,k

Fig. 1. Channel measurements in the high-voltage substation. where Lk denotes the total number of multipath in kth
measurement positions. The root mean square DS (RDS) is
TABLE I. MEASUREMENT SYSTEM PARAMETERS then calculated by:
Parameters Value
 P
Lk 2
Carrier frequency 28 GHz RDS  l 1 l , k l , k
- ( k ) 2 (4)
 P
Lk
Bandwidth 500 MHz
l 1 l , k
Code length 1024 chips
Delay resolution 2 ns The calculation method of root mean square AS (RAS) is
Transmit power -6 dBm similar to DS as follow:
TX antenna Omni

Lk
RX antenna ULA-8 ( l , k ()) 2 Pl ,k
RAS  l 1 (5)

Lk
TX/RX antenna height 2.5 m/2.0 m P
l 1 l , k
TX/RX antenna gain 3dB/4dB
Environment Outdoor high-voltage substation where

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l ,k  2 , l ,k   C n ,k '  C n ,k  min{C n ,k , n  1...N k } (11)

 (6)
 l ,k ()  l ,k , l ,k   where Nk is the total number of clusters in the kth
 measurement positions.
l ,k  2 , l ,k  
2) Identify the major clusters. The cluster with the
B. Clustering Algorithm and Parameters strongest power must be the LoS one, which is simplest to be
In GSCM models, cluster is a widely used concept. After identified. Besides, in most scenario, there are some major
extracting the MPCs by SAGE algorithm, the cluster can be scatterers, clusters generated by those scatterers may have
distinguished in delay-angular domain. In this work, a MCD similar AoA. Through identifying the clusters with stronger
based method is adopted to group the MPCs [13]. The MCD power, the major scatterers can be approximately described
between the i-th and j-th MPC is calculated by by those clusters. The power of major clusters in the CDL
model are calculated as follows:
MCDi , j  MCD 2 AoA,ij  MCD 2 ,ij (7)

K
CPn ,k
CDLPn  k 1
, n  1..N1 (12)
where MCDAOA,ij and MCDτ,ij are respectively denote the K
MCDs in angular domain and delay domain, which are
calculated as K denotes the total number of the measurement positions.
n=1 represents the LoS cluster and the total number of the
MCDAoA,ij  [cos( j ), sin( j )]T  [cos(i ), sin(i )]T (8) major clusters is N1. Similarly to (12), the delays and AoAs
of major clusters in CDL model can be calculated, which can
 j  i  be represented as CDLτn and CDLφn, respectively.
MCD ,ij   (9)
 max
2 3) Identify the other clusters. Except for major clusters,
there exists several clusters with weaker power, which come
 max  max{  j   i ; i, j  [i,..., L] } (10) from discrete scatterers, and it is difficult to identify them for
they do not exist in every measurement position. Therefore,
where φi and φj are the AoAs of the ith and jth MPCs, those clusters can be identified by fitting into normal
respectively, and τi and τj are the delays of the ith and jth distributions:
MPCs, respectively. ξ is a delay scaling factor to balance the
weights in delay and angular domains. The brief clustering  
CDLPn ~ N  Pn ,  P2n , n  N1  1,..N 2 (13)
algorithm consists of the following three steps:
Similarly to (13), the delays and AoAs of the other clusters
1) Choose a reference MPC which has the largest power can be fitted into normal distributions. The total number of
among all the MPCs in the eligible set. clusters in the improved CDL model is N2, which can be
2) Set a predefined threshold denoted with MCDth and determined by the mean value of clusters at each
delay scaling factor ξ, and calculate the MCDs between the measurement position.
reference MPC and others in the set. Select the MPCs with
4) Generate MPCs for each clusters. The MPCs in the
the MCDs less than MCDth, then group them together with
improved CDL model can be generated as:
the reference MPC as one cluster.
3) Remove the allocated MPCs from the MPC set, and re- d
execute step (1) to find the next cluster until all the MPCs are  n,m   CDL n  C RDS (14)
c
allocated to certain clusters.
φn,m  CDLφn  CRAS αm (15)
Note that the parameter ξ and MCDth are determined by a
visual inspection evaluated by whether the clustering results where τn,m and φn,m is the delay and AoA of the mth MPC in
can map to the physical environment. the nth cluster. d is the distance between the RX and TX and
C. The Improved CDL Modeling Method c is the speed of light. αm is the ray offset angles within a
The CDL models are defined for full frequency range cluster and given in Table II [5].
from 0.5 GHz to 100 GHz with a maximum bandwidth of 2
TABLE II. RAY OFFSET ANGLES WITHIN A CLUSTER
GHz in 3GPP. Each CDL model can be scaled in delay and
angle for achieving desired RDS and RAS, respectively. Ray Basis Vector of Ray Basis Vector of
However, the normalized delay, power and AoA is fixed in Number m Offset Angles αm Number m Offset Angles αm
the 3GPP CDL models. In this work, the CDL model can be 1,2 ±0.0447 11,12 ±0.6797
modified to apply to specific scenarios and the modeling 3,4 ±0.1413 13,14 ±0.8844
steps are elaborated as follows: 5,6 ±0.2492 15,16 ±1.1481
7,8 ±0.3715 17,18 ±1.5195
1) Extract MPC parameters by SAGE algorithm and then
9,10 ±0.5129 19,20 ±2.1551
cluster the MPCs by MCD algorithm. The cluster RDS and
RAS can be calculated by (4) and (5), which are represented 5) Generate channel coefficient. With all the MPCs
by CRDS, CRAS, respectively. Then the parameters of each generated, the channel coefficient in any position can be
cluster are simplified as the mean value of the MPCs within calculated by (1) and (2).
the cluster, and sort the clusters by their power. In the kth
measurement position, the power, delay and AoA of the nth IV. MODELING RESULTS AND VALIDATION
cluster are represented by CPn,k, Cτn,k and Cφn,k, respectively. In this section, the MPCs are firstly extracted and
Note that in the kth measurement positions, Cτn,k should be clustered from the measured data, then the model is built up
adjusted as:

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based on the improved CDL model. Finally, the model is
validated by RDS, RAS and PDP.
A. Modeling Results
In the MCD clustering, the parameter ξ and MCDth are
set as 5 and 0.25, respectively. Fig. 2 shows the clustering
result of RX 17, and clusters grouped by the MPCs are
distinguished with different colors. The bigger circle
represents the stronger power of the MPCs. It is seen from
Fig. 2 that one LoS cluster and two main reflector clusters
can be obviously identified, which are marked by the black
ellipse.
LoS
The number of clusters can be counted in order to identify
the total cluster number N2 of CDL model. Fig.4 shows the
cumulative probability distribution function (CDF) of the
number of clusters at all RX positions. It’s seen that the
curve follows to the Gaussian distribution with mean value
of 7.14 and variance of 1.93. Therefore, N2 can be set as 7 or
8.
In the substation scenario, we can identify totally 8
clusters to build the improved CDL model, and N1 and N2
are defined as 3 and 8, respectively, which represents three
major clusters and five other clusters. The parameters of the
clusters can be calculated by (12) and (13). Table III lists the
cluster parameters of the improved CDL model in the
substation scenario, as well as the RDS and RAS of clusters
and the scenario. Note that the power is normalized for
subsequent modeling and processing.

TABLE III. CLUSTER PARAMETERS OF THE IMPROVED CDL MODEL

Power Power Delay Delay AOA AOA

Cluster n
μPn [dB] σPn [dB] μτn [ns] στn [ns] μφn [°] σφn [°]
1 0 \ 0 \ 90 \
2 -2.07 \ 2.25 \ 138.03 \
3 -3.91 \ 4.10 \ 39.58 \
4 -5.90 1.46 9.08 4.66 73.85 16.41
5 -10.11 3.82 23.46 17.29 81.86 23.95
6 -14.59 4.47 36.36 25.25 147.95 32.43
Fig. 2. Clustering results of RX 17. 7 -15.81 9.76 53.15 16.18 40.75 17.79
8 -19.85 11.83 45.80 21.06 122.83 13.24
The cluster parameters can be calculated after clustering. Cluster μCRDS [ns] 1.82 μCRAS [°] 7.37
Parameters σCRDS [ns] 1.51 σCRAS [°] 4.07
Fig. 3 shows the cluster parameters at all 27 RX positions.
Scenario μRDS [lg(s)] -8.25 μRAS [lg(°)] 1.5
It’s seen from Fig. 3 that the LoS cluster can be easily Parameters σRDS [lg(s)] 0.29 σRAS [lg(°)] 0.05
identified which has the strongest power and its AoA is near
90 degrees. Meanwhile, on both sides of the LoS cluster,
two major reflection clusters can be identified with lower B. Model Validation
power, which is consistent with the feature in Fig. 2. The In this work, 27 groups of clusters can be generated for
major clusters are marked by the black ellipse in Fig. 2. validation. Each group has 8 clusters, and the parameters of
Besides, there exists some reflection or scattering clusters clusters can be generated by Table III. Then the MPCs of the
with weak power. clusters can be generated by (14) and (15), note that the
parameter d in (14) is consistent with the actual measurement.

LoS

Fig. 3. Cluster parameters at all RX positions. (a)

(b)
Fig. 4. Number of clusters at all RX positions. Fig. 5. CDF of validated RDS and RAS. (a) RDS. (b) RAS.

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The generated MPCs can be used to validated the RDS
and RAS. Fig. 5 (a) and (b) shows the CDF curves of the
RDS and RAS calculated by MPCs generated by the
improved CDL model, respectively.
It’s seen from Fig. 5 that the CDF curves fit quite well
with Gaussian distributions. The mean value of validated
RDS and RAS are -8.27 lg(s) and 1.46 lg(°), respectively,
while the actual measured RDS and RAS are -8.25 lg(s) and
1.5 lg(°), respectively. In terms of RDS and RAS, the
validated value are very close to the measured ones, which
proves the accuracy of the improved model.
The channel coefficient can be calculated by (1) and (2),
and the PDP can be derived by channel coefficient matrix.
Fig. 6 (a) and (b) show the measured and validated PDP of
RX4, respectively.
(a)
(b)
Fig. 6. Measured and validated PDP of RX4. (a) Measured. (b) Derived by
the improved CDL model.
It’s seen from Fig. 6(b) that the PDP derived by the
improved CDL model can describe the signal of the SIMO
system well, and the main signal which arrives at 450 ns is
consistent with the measured. The results of PDP illustrates
the applicability of the improved model. Therefore, the
channel coefficient derived by the improved CDL model can
be used for further process or analysis as the measurement
data.
CONCLUSIONS
In this work, based on the CDL models in 3GPP TR
38.901, an improved modeling method is proposed to match
specific scenarios. To validate the proposed model, 28 GHz
millimeter wave channel measurement was carried out at a
220kV high-voltage substation. MPCs are first extracted
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from the measured data and then clustered by MCD
algorithm. 8 clusters are identified to establish the improved
CDL model. Then the accuracy and applicability of the
improved CDL model are validated by LSCPs, including
RDS and RAS. The results show that the mean value of RDS
and RAS are very close to the measured ones. Besides, the
derived PDP is plotted and compared with the measured one,
and the main signal of derived PDP is close to the measured
one. In a nutshell, the improved CDL model can match the
actual scenario well, and it can be flexibly applied in other
scenarios.
This work offers a simple channel modeling method for
specific scenario, increases the accuracy while keeping the
modeling process relatively simple, which can be used in
link-level simulation and subsequent construction of the
power IoT.
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