Chapter Two

Mobile Radio Channel Modelling & Mitigations

2.1 Wireless Channel Models and Signal Propagations

Small Scale Fading and Multipath

By : Amare Kassaw
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Objective of the Chapter

In cellular system, calls are occasionally disconnected
 Possible cause: Rapid fluctuation of radio signals amplitude
over a short time period or travel distance

Reasons for wireless channels to become selective and dispersive
both in frequency and time

Sources of signal fluctuation: multipath propagation and mobility

Techniques to minimize or modify propagation loss.

To understand how physical parameters such as carrier frequency,
mobile speed, bandwidth, delay spread impact how a wireless
channel behaves from the communication system point of view.
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Lecture Outlines

Introduction

Parameters of the Mobile Radio Channel

Impulse Response Model of the Wireless Channel

Categorization of the Fading Channel

Summery

Introduction to Wireless Channels

Electromagnetic (EM) signal can transmit through:
 A guided medium or
An unguided medium.

Guided mediums such as coaxial cables and fiber optic cables are
far less hostile for the information carrying EM signal than the
wireless or the unguided medium.

It presents limited challenges and conditions which are unique for
this kind of transmissions.


As the signal travels through the wireless channel, it undergoes

many kinds of propagation effects such as reflection, diffraction
and scattering due to the presence of buildings, mountains and
other such obstructions.

Reflection: occurs when the EM waves impinge on objects which
has very large dimension as compared to the wavelength of the
wave.

Diffraction: occurs when the wave interacts with a surface having
sharp irregularities.

Scattering: occurs when the medium through which the wave is
travelling contains objects which are much smaller than the
wavelength of the EM wave.


These varied phenomena's lead to large scale and small scale

propagation losses.

Hence unlike wired channels that are stationary and predictable,
radio channels are extremely random and time varying
Even the speed of motion impacts how rapidly the signal level
fades as a mobile terminal moves in space

Due to the inherent randomness associated with such channels
they are best described with the help of statistical models.


We have two types of wireless channel models:

Large Scale Path Loss Models: predicts the mean signal strength
for arbitrary transmitter-receiver distances.
 They predict the average signal strength for large Tx-Rx
separations, typically for hundreds of kilometres.
 Time constants associated with variations are very long as the
mobile moves, many seconds or minutes.
 Useful in estimating the coverage area of an antenna
 More important for cell site planning.


Small Scale Fading Models: describes the signal strength variation

in close spatial proximity to a particular location
 Characterize the rapid fluctuations of the received signal strength:
 Over very short travel distances (a few wavelengths) or
 Over very short time durations (in the order of seconds)
 The received power may very by 30-40 dB when the receiver is
moved by fraction of a wavelength
 This is because the received signal is the sum of many
contributions (the phases are random) coming from different
directions
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Example: Small scale and large scale fading

Signal variations in an indoor radio communication system

Signal fades rapidly as the receiver moves
 By more than 20 dBm

However, the average signal
decays much more slowly
with distance (smoothed line)
 Depends on terrain and
obstructions

Small Scale Fading and Multipath

Small scale fading (simply fading) describes rapid fluctuation of
amplitudes, phases, or multipath delays of a radio signal over:
Short period of time or
 Small travel distances

It is more severe than the large-scale path loss

Fading is caused by multipath (self) interference b/n two or more
version of the transmit signal which arrives at the receiver at slightly
different times.
Multipath Waves: Two or more versions of a transmitted signal
 Multipath signals, if arrive at slightly different times, may combine
at the receiver antenna distractively that causes signal fluctuation
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Representation of multipath wireless propagation

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Thus fading describes the rapid fluctuation of amplitudes, phases

and multipath delays of the radio signal over a short period of time.

The most important effects of this multipath fading are:
 Envelope fading: rapid change in signal strength over a small
travel distance or time interval
Time Dispersion: Echo's caused by multipath propagation delays
Frequency Dispersion: Random frequency modulation due to
varying Doppler shifts on different multipath signals
 This Doppler shift is caused by the mobility of mobile which
cause an apparent shift in frequency
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Factors that influence small scale fading :

1. Multipath Propagation: due to the presence of reflecting
objects and scaterers
 Multiple version of the signal arrives at the receiver with
different amplitude and time delays
 Relevant terms: Delay spread and coherence bandwidth
2. Speed of Mobile : due to the relative motion of the base station,
mobile station, and the surrounding environment.
Causes Doppler shift (+ or -) at each multipath component
Results in random frequency modulation or apparent shift in
frequency
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 A receiver moving at high speed can pass through several fades in

small period of time
 Causes time-varying Doppler shift on the multipath components
 If the surrounding objects move at a greater rate than the mobile,
then this effect dominates the small-scale fading and vice versa
 The term coherence time determines how static the channel is
and depends on the Doppler shift,
e.g., room environment ,outdoor, urban,

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3. The bandwidth of the signal: causes frequency selectivity.

 The channel bandwidth can be quantified by the term coherence
bandwidth, Bc
Coherence bandwidth measures the maximum frequency
difference for which signals are still strongly correlated in
amplitude
 If BW of the signal is greater than the coherence bandwidth, the
received signal will be distorted (filtered) in frequency
However, the signal strength will not fade much over a local area
(i.e., small-scale fading will not be significant)
 If the transmitted signal has a narrow bandwidth as compared to the
channel, signal will not be distorted in frequency

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Parameters of the Mobile Radio Channel

Wireless propagation are mostly governed by a number of
unpredictable factors .

So, it is preferred to characterise the wireless channel from a
statistical point of view using some fundamental parameters.

Here, we will see these fundamental parameters and their impacts
on wireless communication

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1. Doppler Shift: is the change in frequency of a wave for an

observer moving relative to the source of the wave.

Caused by movement of Tx, Rx, and environment

Results multiplicative in time rendering the channel impulse
response linear time variant (LTV).

For the mobile in the next figure, phase change in the received
signal due to path difference is

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The apparent change in frequency

Remote Source

This is Doppler spreading

Which increase or decrease
the signal frequency at Rx
= Spatial angle b/n the

Note that if:
direction of motion of
 = 0 then fD is positive
the mobile and
 Apparent received frequency: fa= fs+ fD direction of arrival
 = then fD is negative
 Apparent received frequency: fa= fs- fD
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 = /2 , then fD is zero
 Apparent received frequency: fa= fs

Hence ,when a wave source (transmitter) and/or a receiver is/are
moving, the frequency of the received signal will not be the same
as that of the transmitted signal
 When they are moving towards each other, the frequency of the
received signal is higher than the source
 When they are moving opposite to each other, the received
frequency decreases.
Example : See Handout

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2. Time Dispersive Parameters

The wireless channel is fully described by its impulse response
model as

Where:
= the time-varying attenuation or power delay profile
= phase shift of the channel
= propagation delay of the lth path
Np = number of multipath of the wireless propagation

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2.1 Power Delay Profile(PDP):

It is a statistical parameter indicating how the power of a Dirac
delta function is dispersed in the time-domain as a consequence
of multipath propagation.
It is usually given in a table where the average power associated
with each multipath component is provided along with the
corresponding delay

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In particular the average power of the lth path is given by

Summing all quantities

provides the total average received

power PR.

In practice the PDP is normalized so that the sum of

is unity

as

Based on the

, we define multipath channel parameters that are

used to characterise the time dispersive channel such as : mean

excess delay, RMS delay spread, maximum excess delay and
coherence BW.

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The Mean Excess Delay( ): is the first moment of the power

delay profile and is defined as

 Where

is the average power of the delay profiles in linear

power units and

is the relative delay in seconds.

The RMS Delay Spread( ): is the square root of the second

central moment of the power delay profile and is given by

Where :
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These delays are measured relative to the first detectable signal

arriving at the receiver at 0 =0

Typical values of RMS delay spread are on the order of
microseconds in outdoor mobile radio channels and on the order
of nanoseconds in indoor mobile radio channels.

Note that: the RMS delay spread and mean excess delay are
defined from a single power delay profile which is the temporal or
spatial average of consecutive impulse response measurements
collected and averaged over a local area.

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The maximum excess delay (XdB): the time delay during which
multipath energy falls to XdB below the maximum

x-0 where 0 is the first arrival signal and x is the maximum
signal point at which the multipath component is XdB of the
strongest arrival signal.

The value of X is sometimes called the excess delay spread of a
power delay profile, but in all cases it must be specified with a
threshold that relates the multipath noise floor to the maximum
received multipath component.

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Coherence Bandwidth(Bc): is a statistical measure of the range of

frequencies over which the channel can be considered flat.
Flat channel is a channel which passes all spectral components
with approximately equal gain and linear phase.
 While the delay spread is a natural phenomenon caused by
reflected and scattered propagation paths in the radio channel,
the coherence bandwidth is defined based on the relation derived
from the RMS delay spread.
The range of frequencies over which two frequency components
have a strong potential for amplitude correlation.
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 Two sinusoids with frequency separation greater than BC are

affected differently
If the coherence bandwidth is defined as the bandwidth over
which the frequency correlation function is 0.9

If the coherence bandwidth is defined as the bandwidth over

which the frequency correlation function is 0.5

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The Coherence Time( Tc):

 Delay spread and coherence bandwidth are parameters which describe
the time dispersive nature of the wireless channel.
 But, they do not offer information about the time varying nature of the
channel caused by either relative motion between the mobile and base
station, or by movement of objects in the channel

 Doppler spread and coherence time are parameters which

describe the time varying nature of the channel in a small-scale
region
 Doppler spread BD is a measure of the spectral broadening
caused by the time rate of change of the mobile radio channel and
it is the range of frequencies over which the received Doppler
spectrum is essentially nonzero

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 Coherence time is the time domain dual of Doppler spread and is

used to characterize the time varying nature of the frequency
dispersiveness of the channel in the time domain
The Doppler spread and coherence time are inversely proportional
to one another as Tc=1/ fm.
 Coherence time is the time duration over which two received
signals have a strong potential for amplitude correlation
 If the reciprocal bandwidth of the baseband signal is greater than
the coherence time of the channel, then the channel will change
during the transmission of the baseband message, thus causing
distortion at the receiver
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 If the coherence time is defined as the time over which the time
correlation function is above 0.5, then the coherence time is
approximately

 A popular rule of thumb for modem digital communications is to

define the coherence time as the geometric mean of the above two
equations as
 Generally coherence time implies that two signals arriving with a
time separation greater than Tc are affected differently by the
channel

Example : See Handout

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Impulse Response Model of the Wireless Channel

Small-scale variations of a signal is related to the impulse response
of the mobile radio channel

The impulse response is
 A wideband channel characterization
 Contains all information necessary to simulate or analyze any
type of channel

A wireless channel can be modelled as a linear time varying
(LTV) filter
 The time variation is due to the receiver motion in space
 We use discrete-time impulse response model
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Filtering is caused by the summation of amplitudes and delays of

multipath signals at any instant of time.

In multipath channel, the received signal is the sum of
 Line-of-sight path component &
 All resolvable multipath components

Hence the received low pass signal can be described by

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Thus the low pass equivalent impulse response of the wireless

channel is given by the LTV equation

In this LTV model h(,t):

 t represents the time variations due to motion
 represents the channel multipath delay for a fixed value of t
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Impulse response of a LTV filter h(,t) is the channel output at t

when the channel input is an impulse applied at t- .

h(,t) is a function of two time variables:

1. The instant when the impulse is applied to its input (initial time)
2. The instant of observing the output (final time)

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Example :

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Multipath component characteristics

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Categorization of Small Scale Fading Channels

Based on the parameters that we have seen before small scale
fading channels can be classified as

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Now the above diagram can described as

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Flat and Time Invariant Channels

Here the channel could be regarded as invariant over many
signalling intervals.

So the channel impulse response

becomes independent of time as

The corresponding channel frequency response is

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With very small path delays,

This shows that H(f) is practically constant over the whole signal
bandwidth and therefore the channel is flat.

Thus the complex envelope of the received signal takes the form
which is attenuated and phase rotated version of s(t).

With no LOS component, the phase term, is uniformly distributed
over [-,] and follows a Rayleigh distribution with PDF
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Frequency Selective (Time Dispersive ) Channel

Here the arrival time of scattered multipath signals are inevitably
distinct.

Whether these delays smear the transmitted signal depends on the
product of the signal bandwidth and the maximum differential
delay spread.

A time dispersive (frequency-selective) channel and

its effect on narrow and broad band signals

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Because of the different propagation delays, the channel impulse

response is superposition of delayed delta functions:

Since the multipath delays, {m} are distinct, the frequency response
of H(f) = {h(t)} will exhibit amplitude fluctuation.

Such fluctuation in the frequency domain will distort the waveform
of a broadband signal.

More specifically in digital communication, a channel is considered
frequency-selective if the multipath delays are distinguishable
relative to the symbol period Tsymbol:
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On the other hand, if the signal bandwidth is sufficiently narrow,

the channel frequency response within the signal bandwidth can be
approximated as constant.

A wireless channel is considered flat if the multipath delays are
indistinguishable relative to the symbol period:

The most important problem of frequency selective fading is ISI

and can be mitigated by channel equalizer and adaptive
modulation.

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Frequency Dispersive(Time Selective) Fading Channel

Caused by Doppler effects which causes the channel impulse
linear but time invariant

It causes two effects on the received signal :
 Signal variation over time
 Broadening signal spectrum

The wireless channel is time selective( flat fading ) or frequency
dispersive iff TC Ts, where as the channel is time invariant
( slow fading) iff TC Ts.

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Here the system results a SNR degradation : (t) may be drop to

very low values(deep fades) which leads to poor SNR that
vulnerable to AWGN

Which can be mitigated by
Channel Coding
Interleaving
Diversity techniques

A frequency dispersive (time-selective) channel and its

effect on short and long symbols

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Summery

Small-scale fading composed of multipath & Doppler spread
 Multipath delay spread leads to time dispersion and frequency
selective fading
 Doppler spread leads to frequency dispersion and time selective
fading (the channel becomes time varying)

Envelope Fading: affects the signal strength and therefore fading
margin in link budget calculation of the wireless system.
 Power control and spatial diversity techniques are among the
most effective means to cope with envelope fading.
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Frequency Selective Fading : alters the signal waveform and

therefore the detection performance.
 Channel equalization is utilized to compensate the effect.
 By transferring a broadband signal into parallel narrowband
streams (Multicarrier systems)

Time Selective Fading: smears the signal spectrum and
introduces variation too fast for power control.
 Time interleaving and diversity techniques are most effective
means of coping with time-selective fading.

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