Radio Propagation and Network Planning

Multipath Propagation

Cairo September 2008

Sergio Baldanza
Sergio.baldanza@nsn.com
Spectral Bandwidth of the digital signal

Spectrum of a rectangular binary Signal

Higher Bandwidth efficiency achieved by : Nyquist filtering

: Multiple phase modulation procedure

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Nyquist filtering – Inter-symbol interference

Nyquist Bandwidth
BNY = 0.5 x fbit

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Cosine – roll-off filtering

•An ideal rectangular channel cannot

be achieved
•The signal can be reconstructed
without ambiguities if the spectral
function has half of the amplitude at
the Nyquist bandwidth position.

•Cosine roll-off filters

B = (1 + r) * BN

r = roll-off factor

BN = Nyquist bandwidth

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Reduction of the bandwidth - Modulation

Bandwidth is directly
proportional to the Symbol Rate

Complexity of the modulation

increases the criticity of the
system

Special equalization measures

are required

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Eye diagram

Eye diagram for :

a) 4 QAM modulation
b) 16 QAM modulation
c) 128 QAM modulation

Roll off factor = 0.4

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 Received Signal Level - General

Received signal level, affected by small-scale and large-scale fluctuations

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Atmosphere refraction – Snell’s law

Snell’s law : n1 x sin Θ1 = n2 x sin Θ2

An EM ray entering a medium with different refraction index “n”

is reflected and refracted according to the Snell’s law

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Received Signal Level - General

Besides the dominant component,

the Rx antenna receives a large
number of reflected and scattered
waves. The Rician K-factor is
defined as the ratio of signal
power in dominant component
over the local-mean power of any
other component. For K
decreasing to zero, the Rician
model reduces to the Rayleigh
model

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Multipath propagation - origin

Page 10
Rx level vs Time and Frequency

Page 11
Impairements due to multipath propagation

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Rx level vs Time and Frequency

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Multipath fading events

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 Multipath – Statistical distribution

From the Rx field recordings the

cumulative statistical distributions
are obtained.

The median value of Rx field is

assumed as reference

Normally monthly distributions are

considered

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Multipath – Statistical distribution

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Statistical distribution of fadings

For attenuation > 15/20 dB

the variations follow the :

Log (p) = - P0 x A

To which corresponds a
Rayleigh distribution of the
Rx field

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Concept of P0 – Multipath occurrence factor

P0 A0

Page 18
Multipath occurrence factor – P0

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Multipath occurrence factor - examples

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P0 calculation methods

General formula : P0 = K x Q x Fa x Lb

Formula from Bell Labs ( Rep. 338 ) Traditional

This formula is the result of field measurements in th US,
reported by A. Vigants and W.T. Barnett in several papers

Formula from ITU-R P.530-8

This formula is based on the concept of PL (probability
Widely used
that the gradient is lower than -100 Nunit/km) and on
various terrain coefficients

Formula from ITU-R P.530-9

This formula is based on the concept of ΔN not exceeded Official ITU, but …..
for 1% of the year and area roughness coming from a
geographic database

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P0 formula and Outage – Rec. ITU-R P.530-8

Geoclimatic and terrain factor

K = 5.0 10-7 x 10-0.1(Co-CLAT-CLON) x PL1.5 Where :

PL = Percentage of time that the refractivity gradient in the lowest

100 m of the atmosphere is more negative than –100 N units/km

Path inclination

 p  hr – he /d
Outage
–1.4
p w  Κ d 3.6 f 0.89  1   p   10 – A / 10 %
 
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P0 formula and Outage – Rec. ITU-R P.530-9

Geoclimatic and terrain factor

3.9  0.003dN1
K  10 sa  0.42 Where :

dN1 = The point refractivity gradient in the lowest 65 m of the

atmosphere not exceeded for 1% of an average year

Sa = The standard deviation of terrain heights (m) within a

110 km x 110 km area with a 30 s resolution

Outage

pw  Kd 3.2 (1  | p | ) 0.97 10 0.032 f  0.00085hL  A / 10 %

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Effect of multipath distortion

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Rx level vs Time and Frequency

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 Effects of multipath on Digital Radio Systems

The flat attenuation reduces :

• The S/N ratio at the Receiver

• The C/I ratio in case of un-correlated Interferences

The linear distortion causes :

• Increasing of the inter-symbol interference

• Carrier phase shift, with consequent interference
between orthogonal signals I and Q

The increase of BER is the first effect of these

phenomena
To analytically estimate the probability to have a value of BER
higher than a fixed value, It is necessary to define a channel model

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 Multipath Channel Model

The application of a suitable Channel Model permits to predict the

reduced quality percentage of time of the radio links due to
the presence of multipath.

It is necessary to define :

• A mathematical function H ( jω ) well representing the Channel Model

•A joint probability distribution of the H ( jω ) parameters, conditioned

to the multipath occurrence

•A suitable scale factor representing the occurrence probability in the

reference time period ( normally one month)

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Multipath Channel Model

The most used Model is a symplied 2 rays model

The Channel is characterized by two rays with

amplitude 1 and a1 respectively.
The second is delayed in respect
to the first of τ1

If τ1 is small (2πB τ1 <<< 1), with B as the channel

bandwidth, the transfer function can be
approximated as :
H ( jω ) = a ( 1- b e- j (ω – ω0 ) τ ) with τ =~ τ1

The Transfer function is a Cycloid with minima in :

Notch frequencies = ω0 + 2kπ / τ

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Multipath channel model - Cycloid

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Multipath Channel Model

“Flat” contribution

The probability that the signal is lower than a “Threshold”

depends on the Flat Fade Margin of the system :

 FM10th
Pf  P0  10
“Selective contribution”

The selective contribute is calculated by solving the following

triple integral :

Ps     p(b, f 0 , ) db df 0 d
S

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Multipath Channel Model

Statistical distribution of the parameters

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 Calculation methods - multipath

Different methods exist, some recognized by International

Bodies (ITU – ETSI), some others used by single Operators or
Administrators.

Two main families :

a) Methods based on the channel model

b) Methods based on parametric models

(They are based on the measurement of appropriate parameters
of fading , whose statistic is correlated with the statistic of
the link behavior.)
These methods are generally more precise, but their application
with difficulty applies to general scenarios.

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Frequency selective fadings

Page 33
Effects of frequency selective fadings

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Signature

Page 35
Signature measurement

Page 36
Signature measurement

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Vectorial addition of two signals

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Vectorial addition of two signals

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 Minimum phase and non minimum phase

•The distintion is based on the

group delay behaviour

In the two rays models depends on the

reference :

If the reference is made to the ray delay :

Minimum phase rotation
Τ>0
0 < b < 1 - minimum phase
1 < b < inf. – non minimum phase

If the ref. is made to the ray amplitude :

B<1
Τ > 0 - minimum phase
Τ < 0 – non minimum phase Non-Minimum phase rotation
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Signature

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Depolarization due to multipath

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Cross Polarization - definitions

XPI = 20 log E11 / E21 - XPD = 20 log E11 / E12

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Depolarization due to multipath

Antenna diagrams XPD degr. mechanisms

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XPD degradation – experimental results

The joint equi-probability

distribution of XPD and the
flat copolar attenuation CPA
is shown in the figure

The median curve of the

distribution is assumed
as the model of the
phenomenon

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 Multipath XPD degradation model

For deep fading,

50
XPD = C – CPA C

40

Following Rec. 530,

30

C=XPDg + 5 + Q.

XPD (dB)
20

Where XPDg is the minimum XPD 10

of the antennas ca 7 dB

FM
0
 k  
Q  10 log xp 
 P0  -10
0 10 20 30 40 50
CPA (dB)

Q is a coefficient defined
In the Recommendation

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