BER for BPSK in Rayleigh channel Long back in time we discussed the BER (bit error rate) for

BPSK modulation in a simple AWGN channel (time stamps states August 2007). Almost an year back! It high time we discuss theBER for BPSK in a Rayleigh multipath channel. In a brief discussion on Rayleigh channel, wherein we stated that a circularly symmetric complex Gaussian random variable is of the form,

where real and imaginary parts are zero mean independent and identically distributed (iid) Gaussian random variables with mean 0 and variance . The magnitude which has a probability density,

is called a Rayleigh random variable. This model, called Rayleigh fading channel model, is reasonable for an environment where there are large number of reflectors.

System model
The received signal in Rayleigh fading channel is of the form, , where is the received symbol, is complex scaling factor corresponding to Rayleigh multipath channel is the transmitted symbol (taking values +1s and -1s) and is the Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) Assumptions 1. The channel is flat fading In simple terms, it means that the multipath channel has only one tap. So, the convolution operation reduces to a simple multiplication. For a more rigorous discussion on flat fading and frequency selective fading, may I urge you to review Chapter 15.3Signal Time-Spreading from [DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS: SKLAR]

2. The channel is randomly varying in time meaning each transmitted symbol gets multiplied by a randomly varying complex number . Since is modeling a Rayleigh channel, the real and imaginary parts are Gaussian distributed having mean 0 and variance 1/2. 3. The noise has the Gaussian probability density function with

with

and

4. The channel is known at the receiver. Equalization is performed at the receiver by dividing the received symbol by the apriori known i.e.

where is the additive noise scaled by the channel coefficient.

Bit Error Rate

The equations listed below refers Chapter 14.3 in [DIGITAL COMMUNICATION: PROAKIS] If you recall, in the post on BER computation in AWGN, the probability of error for transmission of either +1 or -1 is computed by integrating the tail of the Gaussian probability density function for a given value of bit energy to noise ratio . The bit error rate is, . However in the presence of channel is , the effective bit energy to noise ratio is,

. So the bit error probability for a given value of

where

To find the error probability over all random values of , one must evaluate the conditional probability density function over the probability density function of . Probability density function of From our discussion on chi-square random variable, we know that if is a Rayleigh distributed random variable, then is chi-square distributed with two degrees of freedom. since is chi square distributed, distributed. The probability density function of is, . Error probability So the error probability is, is also chi square

. Somehow, this equation reduces to

Eb/N0 Vs BER for BPSK over Rician Fading Channel

In one of the previous article, simulation of BPSK over Rayleigh Fading channel was discussed. This article deals with simulation of another important fading type : Rician Fading.

Rayleigh Fading:
Rayleigh Fading model is used to simulate environments that has multiple scatterers and no Line Of Sight (LOS) path. If there are sufficient multiple scatterers in the environment, all the reflected signals that appear at the receiver front end becomes uncorrelated in amplitude (this brings mean

=0) and phase evenly distributed between 0 to 2. Eventually the I (inphase) and Q (quadrature) phase components become Gaussian distributed (by central limit theorem) and their envelope Note that distribution I2 becomes Rayleigh distributed. is called Chi-Square distribution. If I2 has mean=0, then it is called central-

Chi-square distribution and if mean 0 it is called non-central-Chi-square distribution

Rayleigh Distribution:
Consider two Gaussian random variables X and Y with zero mean and equal variance 2. Then the transformation is Rayleigh Distributed and Z2 is exponentially distributed.

Rician Fading:
Rician Fading model is used to simulate environments that produces multiplath components and also a dominant Line Of Sight (LOS) component. The LOS component is called specular component and the multipath component is called random or scatter component. The amplitude distribution of the specular component will have non-zero mean, where as, the random component will have zero-mean.

Rician Distribution:
Consider two Gaussian random variables X and Y. Here X models the specular component (LOS) and Y models the random/scatter component.By definition, X has non-zero mean (m), Y has zero mean and both have equal variance 2. Then the transformation, Rician factor and it is defined as is Rician Distributed. The ratio of power of specular component to the power of random component is called

It can be immediately ascertained that Rayleigh Fading is related to central Chi Square distribution (due to zero mean) and the Rician Fading is related to non-central Chi Square distribution (due to non zero mean).

Performance simulation of BPSK over Rician Fading Channel with AWGN noise:
The simulation strategy is very similar to the technique used for simulating Rayleigh Fading. The only difference here is that in Rician Fading, factor is one of inputs that defines the relative strength of LOS component and the multiplath scattered component. To simulate a Rician Fading channel, mean and sigma has to be calculated with the given Rician factor.

Lets define mean (m) and sigma () as given below, so that it satisfies the equation given above.

As discussed above, in Rician Fading, the specular component (X) has to be a Gaussian random variable with mean=m and sigma=, but the scatter component (Y) has to be generated with mean=0 and sigma=. In Matlab randn function generates Gaussian random numbers with mean=0 and sigma = 1. To generate X component with mean=m and sigma=, the output of randn has to be multiplied with and added with m. To generate Y component with sigma=, the output of the randn function has to be multiplied with . The rest of the simulation code is similar to that of BPSK over Rayleigh/AWGN channel simulation.

Theoretical BER :
Theoretical BER for BPSK over Rician Fading Channel with AWGN noise is given by the following expression[1]

Simulation Model:
The following model is used for the simulation of BPSK over Rician Fading channel (with AWGN noise).

Rician Fading Simulation Model

Matlab Code:
Check this book for full Matlab code. Simulation of Digital Communication Systems Using Matlab by Mathuranathan Viswanathan

Simulated Result

Eb/N0 Vs BER for BPSK over Rician Fading Channel with AWGN noise