link budget

The power transfer balance, link budget, is a characteristic value of RF transmission technology. It is the amplifications (gains) and attenuations (losses) of the components that a signal experiences from the transmitting antenna to reception by a receiving antenna. These gains and attenuations are accounted for and subtracted from the transmit power.

In an RF transmission channel, the transmission components are the transmitting antenna with a certain antenna gain. The transmission medium is air or airless space, whose losses are the free-space attenuation. In terms of reception, the antenna gain of the receiving antenna again enters into the power balance. All these quantities are added to or subtracted from the transmit power, so that the power balance represents a value that can be processed by the input sensitivity of the receiver.

In summary, the power transmission balance is the received power, which is calculated from the transmitted power plus the gains, minus the attenuations. It is specified in dBm.