LTE Radio Field Intensity Investigation for Improving Multipath Communication at Sea

Abstract

Recently, a great deal of attention has been focused on marine engineering research involving the combination of information technology and communication technology, leading to the development of applications such as remote maneuvering. Wireless communication properties (e.g., stability, speed, low latency, and available location) are important factors for the performance of these applications. However, the quality of these properties on the open sea is unclear. In this paper, we investigated the received signal strength and transmission speed for each LTE band at sea in order to design a multipath controlled maritime wireless communication system. We developed a device that can measure the received LTE signal strength for each band and installed it on the compass deck of the training ship “Shioji-maru”. Using the measured data, we investigated the distribution of received signal strength for LTE bands 1, 3, and 19, as well as the difference of transmission speed in each band in Tokyo Bay and off the coast of Tateyama. These results have the potential to be used for the selection of the LTE band for optimal communication performance at a given position and the form of line aggregation that can satisfy the communication performance required by the application.