Experimental determination of the propagation of wireless signals on board a cruise ship

The characterization of the wireless channel on board a cruise ship is considered by means of frequency domain measurements of received power and propagation attenuation. This electromagnetic environment is rather new and is characterized by abundance of reflecting and diffracting elements, so that a significant difference with respect to more common residential and office environments was found. The measurement setup is simple and easy to position and operate; the measurement results were validated by comparison with another independent measurement setup. The results indicate that the power losses for corridors are not a power law of distance, due to scattering; even in large environments such as restaurant halls the presence of reflecting and scattering objects and installations largely affects the received power.