Chapter Two

Wireless Radio Channel

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 Outline
 Speed, Wavelength, Frequency

 Types of Waves

 Radio Frequency Bands

 Propagation Mechanisms

 Radio Propagation Effects

 Free-Space Propagation

 Path Loss

 Fading, Delay Spread, Doppler Shift

 Intersymbol Interference

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Speed, Wavelength, and Frequency
Light speed = Wavelength x Frequency ……………….(2.1)
= 3 x 108 m/s = 300,000 km/s

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Types of Waves

Ionosphere
(80 - 720 km)
Sky wave
Mesosphere
(50 - 80 km)

Space wave Stratosphere

(12 - 50 km)
Ground wave
Troposphere
(0 - 12 km)
Earth
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Radio Frequency Bands

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Introduction to Propagation Models
 The wireless radio channel poses a severe challenge as a medium for

reliable high-speed communication.

 It is not only susceptible to noise, interference, and other channel

impediments, but these impediments change over time in

unpredictable ways due to user movement.

 Simple free-space propagation occurs only rarely.

 For most radio links we need to study the influence of the presence

of the earth, buildings, vegetation, the atmosphere and the

ionosphere.
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Propagation Models
 Reflection
 Propagation wave impinges on an object

which is larger as compared to wavelength.

- e.g., the surface of the Earth, buildings, walls, etc. Reflection

 It may impinge on dielectric or conductor. If a radio wave is

incident on a perfect dielectric, then part of the energy is
reflected back and part of the energy is actually transmitted
through the dielectric.
 The electric field intensity of the reflected and transmitted waves
can be related by the Fresnel coefficient gamma.
6 . 4/7/2019
Cont’d…
 If the radio waves are incident on a perfect conductor, the entire
energy is reflected back.
 Reflection coefficient should be calculated based on incident and
reflected wave. Intrinsic impedance is also obtained based on
permeability and permittivity of objects.
 Electromagnetic waves are polarized. They have instantaneous
electric field components in orthogonal directions in space.
 A polarized wave can be represented as a sum of two specially
orthogonal components. For example, you can have a vertically
polarized wave or horizontally polarized wave or you can have left
hand circularly polarized or right hand circularly polarized waves.
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Refraction
Refraction is the change in direction of a wave
due to a change in its speed. This is most
commonly observed when a wave passes from Refraction
one medium to another. Refraction of light is
the most commonly observed phenomenon.

 Diffraction

 Radio path between transmitter and receiver

obstructed by surface with sharp irregular edges Diffraction

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Cont’d…
 Diffraction is the phenomena
that explains the digression of a
wave from a straight line path,
under the influence of an
obstacle, so as to propagate
behind the obstacle.
Diffraction is explained by
Huygens-Fresnel principle which
states that all points on a wave
front can be considered as the
point source for secondary
wavelets which form the
secondary wave front in the
direction of the propagation.

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Scattering


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Knife-Edge Diffraction Geometry

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Cont’d…


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Radio Propagation Effects

Direct Signal

hb Reflected Signal
Diffracted
Signal hm

d
Transmitter Receiver

 Here, hb is the height of antenna from the earth's surface at the BS, hm is
the height of antenna from the earth's surface at the MS, and d is the
13 distance between BS and MS 4/7/2019
Cont’d…
 As a MS moves through a coverage area, these 3 mechanisms have an

impact on the instantaneous received signal strength

 If a mobile has a clear LOS path to the BS, then diffraction and

scattering will not dominate the propagation

 If a mobile is at a street level without LOS, then diffraction and

scattering will probably dominate the propagation

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Propagation Models Classification
 Different scales

 Large scale (averaged over meters)

 Small scale (order of wavelength)

 Different environmental characteristics

 Outdoor, indoor, land, sea, space, etc.

 Different application areas

 macro cell (2km), microcell(500m), Pico cell

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Path-loss Model and Signal Coverage
Signal coverage
 Calculation of signal coverage is essential for design and
deployment of both narrowband and wideband wireless networks.
 Signal coverage is influenced by various factors
 the radio frequency
 the terrain
 power of the transmitted signal,
 the path loss…….etc.
 Each radio receiver has particular power sensitivity.
 it can only detect and decode signals with a strength larger than
this sensitivity.
The signal strength falls with distance.
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Cont’d…
 Using the transmitter power, the path-loss model, and the sensitivity
of the receiver, one can calculate the signal coverage.
 The core of the signal coverage calculations for any environment is
a path-loss model.
 Which relates the loss of signal strength to distance between two
terminals.
 Using path-loss models we can calculate
 the coverage area of wireless base station and access points.
 maximum distance between two terminals in an ad hoc network
A unique channel model cannot describe radio propagation
between the transmitter and the receiver.

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Path-loss Models
 Path-loss Models

 Free Space Propagation

 Two-Ray Model for Mobile Radio Environments

 Distance-Power Relationship

 Path Loss in Urban, Suburban, Open areas

 Path Loss Models for Macro cellular Areas

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Free Space Propagation


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Cont’d…

hb

hm

Transmitter Distance d
Receiver

 The received signal power at distance d is given by equation (2.3)

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Cont’d…


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Cont’d…
Example:
 Antenna with diameter 2 m, frequency 6 GHz or wavelength 0.05 m
G = 39.4 dB
 Frequency 14 GHz, same diameter, wavelength 0.021 m
G = 46.9 dB
 The higher the frequency the higher the gain for the same size
antenna will be
 Isotropic radiator
 An ideal antenna which radiates power with unit gain uniformly in
all direction
 Often used to reference antenna gains in wireless systems.

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Cont’d…


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Cont’d…


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Cont’d…


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Cont’d…


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Path Loss (Free-space)


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Two-Ray Model
 The distance-power relationship observed for free space does not
hold for all environments.
 In free space, the signal travels from transmitter to the receiver along
a single path.
 In all realistic environments, the signal reaches the receiver through
several different paths.
 The simple free space model will not be valid for such scenarios and
several complex models are required.
 The two-path or two-ray model is used for modeling the land mobile
radio.

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Cont’d…


Line-of-sight path(LOS)
hb

Ground reflection hm

Transmitter Distance d
Receiver

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Cont’d…


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Distance-Power Relationship


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Path Loss (Urban, Suburban and Open areas


1.1log10 f c ( MHz )  0.7hm (m)  1.56 log10 f c ( MHz )  0.8, for l arg e city

 hm (m)  8.29log10 1.54hm (m)2  1.1, for f c  200MHz 
 , for small & medium city
3.2log10 11.75hm (m)  4.97, for f c  400MHz 
2

2
 f ( MHz ) 
LPS (dB)  LPU (dB)  2log10 c   5.4
 28 

LPO (dB)  LPU (dB)  4.78log10 f c (MHz )  18.33log10 f c (MHz )  40.94

2

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Area Mean Models
 The model applies to three terrain categories

 Urban area: built-up city or large town with large buildings and

houses with two or more storeys, or larger villages with closely built
houses and tall, thickly grown trees

 Suburban area: village or highway scattered with trees and houses,

some obstacles being near the mobile, but not very congested

 Open area: open space, no tall trees or buildings in path, plot of

land cleared for 300 – 400 m ahead, e.g. farmland, rice fields, open
fields

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Path Loss
 Path loss in decreasing order:

Urban area (large city)

Urban area (medium and small city)

Suburban area

Open area

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Path Loss Models for Macro-cellular Areas
 Macro-cellular areas span a few kilometers to tens of
kilometers, depending on the location.
 There have been extensive measurements in a number of cities
and locations of the received signal strength in macro-cellular
areas.
 The most popular of these measurements corresponds to those
of Okumura in 1968.
 The expressions for path loss developed by Hata are called the
Okumura-Hata models. (empirical path-loss models)
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Okumura-Hata Model


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Cont’d…


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Cont’d…


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Cont’d…
 Problem: Using the Okumura-Hata Model, Determine the path loss of a

900 MHz cellular system operating in a large city from a base station with
the height of 100 m and mobile station installed in a vehicle with antenna
height of 2 m. The distance between the mobile and the base station is 4
km.
 Solution:
We calculate the terms in the Okumura-Hata model as follows:
fc = 900MHz; hb = 100m; hm = 2m; d=4km.
a(hm) =3.2[lg(11.75hm)]2-4.97=1.045dB
LH-O=69.55+26.16lgfc-13.82lghb-a(hm)+[44.9-6.55lghb]lgd=137.3dB

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COST231-Hata Model


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Multipath Propagation
 Multipath is a term used to describe the multiple paths a radio wave

may follow between transmitter and receiver. Such propagation

paths include the ground wave, Ionospheric refraction, re-radiation
by the Ionospheric layers, reflection from the Earth's surface or from
more than one Ionospheric layer, etc.

 Multiple copies of a signal may arrive at different phases

 If phases add destructively, the signal level relative to noise

declines, making detection more difficult.

 Multipath propagation is a cause for fading to occur.

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Fading
 The term fading is used to describe rapid fluctuation of the amplitude of a
radio signal over a short period of time or travel distance.
 Fading is caused by interference between two or more versions of the
transmitted signal being slightly out of phase due to the different
propagation time.
 The multipath waves merged at the receiver’s antenna produce a
composite signal varying widely in amplitude and phase.
 Atmospheric loss

 e.g. At high rain intensity (150 mm/hr), the fading of an RF signal at 2.4
Ghz may reach a maximum of 0.02 dB/Km.
 Wind may cause fading due to antenna motion

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Cont’d…
 If the two signals reach the receiver in-phase (both signals are at the
same point in the wave cycle), then the signal is amplified. This is
known as an “up fade.”
 If the two waves reach the receiver out-of-phase (the two signals
are at opposite points in the wave cycle ), they weaken the overall
received signal.
 If the two waves are 180º apart when they reach the receiver, they
can completely cancel each other so that a radio does not receive a
signal at all. A location where a signal is canceled out by multipath
is called a “null” or “down fade.”
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Cont’d…
 There is a large dependence of fading on distance.
 The probability of fade of a particular depth increases with the cube of
distance.
 Thus, as the distance is doubled, the probability of a particular fade
depth increases by a factor of eight.
 Or, alternatively, the fade for a given probability increases by 9 dB. So,
doubling the distance will increase the free-space loss by 6 dB, and
increase the probability of fading by 9 dB, thus increasing the overall
link-budget loss by 15 dB.
 There is a fairly strong dependence of fading on the height of the path
above sea level. There is simply less atmosphere at higher altitudes and
therefore the effect of atmospheric fading is smaller.
 For every 1000 meter increase in altitude the required fade margin
reduces by 10 dB.
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Types of fading
 Fast fading - occurs when the coherence time of the channel is small
relative to the delay constraint of the channel. Fast fading causes rapid
fluctuations in phase and amplitude of a signal if a transmitter or receiver
is moving or there are changes in the radio environment (e.g. car passing
by). If a transmitter or receiver is moving, the fluctuations occur within a
few wave lengths. Because of its short distance fast fading is considered as
small-scale fading.
 Slow fading - arises when the coherence time of the channel is large
relative to the delay constraint of the channel. Slow fading occurs due to
the geometry of the path profile. This leads to the situation in which the
signal gradually gets weaker or stronger.

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Cont’d…
 Flat fading

 Selective fading

 Rayleigh fading

 Ricean fading

 Nakagami fading

 Weibull fading

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Fading

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Slow Fading and Fast Fading
 Slow Fading

 The long-term variation in the mean level is known as slow fading

 Slow fading caused by movement over distance large enough to produce

gross variations in the overall path between MS and BS.

 Fast Fading

 The rapid fluctuations caused by the local multipath are known as fast

fading. (short-term fading)

 Fast fading usually observed over distances of about half a wavelength.

 For VHF and UHF, a vehicle traveling at 30 miles per hour can pass

through several fast fades in a second

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Small-Scale Fading and Multipath
 Multipath propagation create small-scale fading effects.

 The three most important effects are:

 Rapid changes in signal strength over a small travel distance or time

interval.
 Random frequency modulation due to varying Doppler shifts on
different multipath signals.
 Time dispersion caused by multipath propagation delays.

 Even when a mobile receiver is stationary, the received signal may fade
due to a non-stationary nature of the channel (i.e. reflecting objects can be
moving).

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Cont’d…
 Major Factors influencing small-scale fading
Multipath propagation: The presence of reflecting and
scattering objects in the space between BS and MS creates a
constantly changing environment.
Speed of mobile terminal: The relative motion between the MS
and the BS results in a due to different Doppler shifts on each of
the multipath signals.
Speed of surrounding objects: Similar result as from the moving
mobile.
The transmission bandwidth: Depending on the relation
between the signal bandwidth and the channel bandwidth.
 If the bandwidth of transmitted signal is lower than the channel
bandwidth, only gain and phase of the signal are changed,
nonlinear transformation could not occur.
 If larger, part of the transmitted signal is truncated.
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Doppler Shift


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Cont’d…

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Delay Spread
 Delay Spread resulting in Inter symbol interference (ISI) - one or

more delayed copies of a pulse may arrive at the same time as the
primary pulse for a subsequent bit .

 When a signal propagates from a transmitter to a receiver, signal

suffers one or more reflections.

 This forces signal to follow different paths.

 Each path has different path length, so the time of arrival for each

path is different.

 This effect which spreads out the signal is called “Delay Spread”.
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Delay Spread of A Signal

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Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI)


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Cont’d…

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Mitigation Techniques for Fading Channels
 Mobile communication systems require signal processing
techniques that improve the link performance in hostile mobile radio
environments.
 Three popular techniques:
 Equalization: compensates for ISI
 Diversity: compensates for channel fading
 Channel coding: detects or corrects errors
 Equalization:
 If the modulation bandwidth exceeds the coherence bandwidth of
the radio channel, ISI occurs and modulation pulses are spread in
time.
 Equalization compensates for intersymbol interference (ISI)
created by multipath within time dispersive channels.

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Cont’d…
 Diversity:

 Usually employed to reduce the depth and duration of the fades

experienced by a receiver in a flat fading (narrowband) channel.
 Types of diversity:

 polarization diversity

 frequency diversity

 time diversity

 Spatial diversity

 Diversity exploits the random nature of radio propagation by finding

independent signal paths for communication, so as to boost the
instantaneous SNR at the receiver.

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Cont’d…
 Channel Coding

 Channel coding protects digital data from errors by selectively

introducing redundancies in the transmitted data.

 Two types of Channel codes

error detection codes

error correction codes

The basic purpose of Channel Coding:

 Introduce redundancies in the data to improve wireless link

performance.
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