IET Microwaves, Antennas & Propagation

Research Article

Inverse Gaussian-based composite channel

model and time series generator for land
mobile satellite systems under tree
shadowing

ISSN 1751-8725
Received on 13th July 2015
Accepted on 7th December 2015
doi: 10.1049/iet-map.2015.0725
www.ietdl.org

Charilaos Kourogiorgas 1, Milan Kvicera 2, Athanasios D. Panagopoulos 1 , Pavel Pechac 2

1

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Iroon Polytechniou 9, 15780 Athens, Greece
Department of Electromagnetic Field, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Technicka 2,
166 27 Prague 6, Czech Republic
E-mail: thpanag@ece.ntua.gr

Abstract: In this study, a new composite channel model for land mobile satellite (LMS) systems under tree shadowing is
proposed utilising the inverse Gaussian (IG) distribution to model the shadowing component. Using the experimental data
of received power under tree shadowing at L-band, which were carried out at Stromovka Park in Prague, the Czech
Republic, the assumption of the IG distribution for the description of the first-order statistics of large-scale effects is
investigated and validated. A new LMS channel model is developed as a sum of a signal experiencing IG shadowing
and a signal under Rayleigh multipath effects. Moreover, a methodology to generate accurate time series of the
received signal envelope using the IG distribution is presented. Such methodology and generally time series
generators can be used for the evaluation of systems performance and for end-to-end simulations. Finally, it is shown
that the proposed time series generator reproduces the first-order and second-order statistics of the LMS channel
model with a very good accuracy.

Introduction

Land mobile satellite (LMS) communication systems have a great

advantage of large coverage areas and capability to deliver
multimedia data to mobile users. Up to now, the L and S bands have
been used for the LMS communication between the Earth users and
satellites [1]. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute
(ETSI) standardisation body has recently published the standard of
digital video broadcasting (DVB-Return Channel via Satellite 2
(RCS2)) for mobile satellite handhelds [2]. However, the reliable
design of LMS systems needs the accurate modelling of the channel.
More particularly, path loss, shadowing and multipath effects, which
deteriorate the systems performance, need to be predicted.
The models that are mostly used for the description of the LMS
channel are deterministic, e.g. ray-tracing, statistical and hybrid
[3]. The statistical models try to capture the rst-order statistics of
the LMS channel using well-known probability distributions to
describe either shadowing (e.g. the lognormal distribution) or
multipath effects (Rice and Rayleigh distributions) as random
variables (RVs) or both [4]. For the latter case, composite
channels have been proposed in order to capture both effects.
Among the widely used composite channels are the Loo [5],
Suzuki [6], Corazza and Vatalaro [7] and Abdi et al. [8] models.
Apart from the rst-order statistics, the second-order statistics are
necessary in order to proceed to end-to-end system simulations.
Channel models and time series generators based on the Loo
distribution have been already developed in [9, 10] for single-input
and single-output and multiple-input and multiple-output links.
Very recently, the inverse Gaussian (IG) [11] distribution has been
identied as a potential distribution for modelling of the rst-order
statistics of large-scale random effects, i.e. shadowing [1214].
Therefore, in this paper, the modelling of shadowing effects by the
IG distribution for LMS channels is investigated for the rst time
in this literature. Using the received power measurements under
tree shadowing for different elevation angles described in [15, 16],
the IG distribution is tested for modelling of the rst-order
statistics of the large-scale effects.

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Moreover, going one step further, new radiowave propagation

channel model in terms of time series synthesiser is provided,
offering the satellite designers another possibility for LMS channel
modelling under tree shadowing in case the distributions in [5, 7]
do not show good tting results. Therefore, following the
methodology in [5], we consider the received signal complex
envelope is a sum of two signals: (a) a strong component whose
amplitude follows the IG distribution and (b) a component which
incorporates multipath effects whose amplitude follows Rayleigh
distribution. On the basis of these assumptions, a complete
channel model and a synthesiser based on the new proposed
distribution are developed in order to obtain time series of the
signal envelope. It can be considered as an alternative propagation
tool giving the capability to capture the complex propagation
effects of LMS systems.
The rest of this paper is organised as follows: in Section 2, details
for the IG distribution are given, whereas in Section 3 the assumption
of the IG shadowing is validated using the experimental data from
[15]. In Section 4, the probability density function (PDF) of the
new composite model is presented together with the proposed time
series generator. In Section 5, the synthesiser is validated and
nally some conclusions are drawn.

IG distribution

In this section, the IG distribution is briey described. Consider a RV

X that follows the IG distribution, and then the PDF of X is [11]

fX (x) =








l 3/2
l(x m)2
x
exp
, x.0
2p
2m2 x

(1)

where l and are the two parameters of the RV. The mean value of
is equal to and the variance is equal to 3/l. The probability that
the RV is below a threshold value xth, thus representing a cumulative

Table 1 Variance of the signal envelope after fitting the IG distribution

distribution function (CDF) (outage probability), is given as













l
xth
l
xth
2l/m
+e
Q
1
1+
P[X xth] = Q
xth
m
xth
m
(2)
where Q(.) is the Gaussian Q-function equal to
1
Q(x) =




2p

+1
x

et

/2

 
1
x
dt = erfc


2
2

Elevation intervals
2030
3040
4050
5060
6070
7080
8090

RMS value of relative error, %

Variance, mV2

23.2
21.9
19.9
22.3
25.7
25.6
33.3

0.133
0.118
0.101
0.082
0.057
0.043
0.014

(3)

The availability probability known as the complementary CDF is

given by the expression from the probability theory
P[X . xth] = 1 P[X xth]

to the experimental data by means of the MLE method

(4)

3 LMS measurements and validation of IG

assumption
In this paper, for the validation of the IG shadowing assumption, the
experimental data of the received signal power under tree shadowing
as obtained at Stromovka Park in Prague, the Czech Republic, are
utilised [15, 16]. Raw data processing has already been
analytically described in [15, 16]. Though the measurements
described in the aforementioned references include four channels
and two scenarios, here we use only the measurements of co-polar
signals with right-hand circular polarisation for the heavy tree
shadowing (HTS) scenario. This scenario was selected due to a
stronger shadowing compared with the other scenario in [16].
To address the IG assumption for the large-scale effects, a
moving-average lter [4] has been implemented and applied to the
processed data so that the large-scale effects were extracted. In
Fig. 1, the CDF of the measured envelope is shown for two
different elevation angles, 2030 and 3040. In the same
gure, apart from the measured CDF, the theoretical IG
distribution is shown after its tting to the experimental one
through the maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE) method. It can
be observed that the IG distribution describes well the shadowing
effects. More particularly, the relative error has been calculated
and its RMS value taking into account all the elevation intervals
equals 22.7%. Moreover, in Table 1, the RMS error of the IG
distribution for every interval of elevation angles is shown.
For further testing, the KolmogorovSmirnov test has been
employed for all the elevation angle intervals to test the IG
distribution validity. On the basis of the analysis and the tests, it
was observed that in all cases, the test could not reject the null

hypothesis, i.e. the large-scale effects follow the IG distribution.

Consequently, the IG distribution can be further used for the
description of the tree shadowing effects in LMS channels.
Finally, in Table 1, the variance of the signal envelope after the
employment of the MLE of the IG distribution to the
measurements is presented for all the elevation angle intervals. On
the basis of Table 1, it can be observed that the variance of the
received envelope is decreasing. This occurs due to the decrease of
the shadowing effects with the increase of the elevation angles.
In case the statistical parameters of the lognormal distribution for
the large-scale effects have been already calculated from other
experimental data, they are related to the IG distribution
parameters and l of the IG distribution by Chatzidiamantis
et al. [13]

exp mLN /j

l=

2
2 sinh sLN /2j


m
s2

m = exp LN + LN2
j
2j

(5)

where j is equal to 4.3429 and LN and LN are the mean value and
standard deviation of a Gaussian RV 10 log10(x)


2 
10 log10 x mLN
j
fX , LN (x) =




exp
2s2LN
2psLN x

(6)

4 Composite LMS channel model time series

generator
In this section, a new channel model is proposed for LMS channels
under tree shadowing. As it was mentioned in Section 1, following
the methodology in [5], the signal envelope is the sum of two RVs
with the rst one describing the shadowing effects, whereas the
second one the multipath effects. Therefore, the signal envelope is
given as
r exp(ju) = a exp(jw0 ) + w exp(jw)

(7)

where is the amplitude of the strong component of the signal and it

is IG distributed, w incorporates the multipath effects and it is
Rayleigh distributed and j0, j are uniformly distributed in the
interval [0, 2). Following the theory, the PDF of the signal
envelope is
f (r ) =

Fig. 1 Signal envelope CDF as obtained from the experimental data (solid
lines) and the IG distribution (dotted lines) for elevation intervals: = 2030
and 3040

r
b0

1
0


  
r2 + a2
ra
I0
p(a)da, r 0
exp
b0
2b0

(8)

where p(a) is the IG PDF given in (1) and b0 is related to the strength
of the multipath. Given (1) and (8), the parameter of the envelope is
the mean value of the slowly varying component of the received
signal, the value 3/l is the variance of shadowing, and as
aforementioned the value b0 is related to the strength of multipath
as denoted in [5, 9].

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Fig. 2 Block diagram of the proposed synthesiser based on the modied

Loo distribution

Apart from the rst-order statistics, which are useful for the
calculation of the LMS systems margin, time series are also
required for the implementation of end-to-end system level
simulations. For the composite model presented in this paper, a
corresponding block diagram is shown in Fig. 2. Here, we
consider that the Rayleigh time series as well as the time series of
the uniform RVs from which the phase of the Rayleigh phasors is
calculated are independent for every sample. Regarding the IG
time series, it is known that the shadowing is correlated in the
temporal domain. A temporal correlation model of the reduced
Gaussian variable (considering the lognormal shadowing) of
large-scale effects is given in [10] and employed also here


t
rn (t) = exp y
rc

(9)

where is the speed of the mobile user and rc is the coherence

distance of the channel. Values of rc can be found in [10].
The correlated time series of the IG process are generated using
the Copula-based methodology [17] already used in [18] for
Nakagami distributed time series. In [19], a similar method has
been proposed for the evaluation of a cooperative LMS scenario
and the calculation of the outage probability.
In Fig. 3, an example of the time series of the received power is
shown as generated using the proposed synthesiser for a link with
an elevation angle between 20 and 30. The simulator assumes
that the temporal joint statistics for various time delays follow the
Gaussian copula, and therefore the synthesised IG time series
reproduce the Kendalls t rank correlation coefcient which is
given as an input through the following transformation of (9)

t=

2
sin1 rn
p

(10)

Fig. 3 Time series of the received power with reference to the free space
path loss for the elevation angle interval between 20 and 30

Fig. 4 CDF of the signal envelope large-scale effects as obtained based

on the IG distributed time series, theoretical IG distribution and as
experimentally obtained

The IG hypothesis should be further processed in various

environments (e.g. urban) in order to be able to generalise the
proposed composite channel for LMS systems for all scenarios.

Numerical results and discussion

In this section, we validate the rst- and the second-order statistics

provided by the proposed LMS model based on the IG time series
generator. Results in terms of outage probability are presented to
show the excellent agreement with the experimental data.
First, we consider the IG time series, i.e. the shadowing time
series, and we use the values of the IG shadowing distribution
derived from the large-scale effects of the measurements at the
HTS scenario for the elevation angle interval between 60 and
70. In Fig. 4, the CDF of the large-scale component of the signal
envelope is shown based on the measurements, the theoretical
CDF of the IG distribution after its tting to the experimental data
and the synthesised time series. It can be observed rst that the
synthesised time series are close to the measured distribution.
From Table 1, it can be also seen that the relative error for this
case is equal to 25.7%. Moreover, following Fig. 4, it is observed
that the synthesiser reproduces the theoretical IG distribution well,
as expected based on Section 4.
Considering the second-order statistics, we validate the IG
synthesiser against the theoretical expression from [10]. For the
validation, we consider the autocorrelation function of the large
scale of the signal envelope. In Fig. 5, the Kendalls t is
calculated from time series of signal envelope under shadowing
and the theoretical one derived from [10].

Fig. 5 Autocorrelation function as obtained theoretically and based on the

large-scale effects time series

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Fig. 6 CDF of received power w.r.t. free space path loss as derived from the measurements, theoretically or based on the generated time series for elevation
angle intervals 2030 and 8090

Since we have validated the synthesiser of the IG time series, we

proceed to the CDF of the signal envelope. The proposed time series
generator is also tested against the measured data. Using the
non-linear regression process described in [16], the CDF of (8) is
tted to the CDF obtained from the experimental data. On the
basis of the tting process, the parameters , l and b0 are
extracted so that time series of the received signal envelope can be
generated. In Fig. 6, the CDF of the received power with reference
to the free space path loss in dBm is shown for the elevation angle
intervals from 20 to 30 and from 80 to 90. The curves refer to
the CDF derived from measurements, the theoretical CDF, the
CDF derived from the generated time series and the CDF from
Loo distribution. First, it can be observed that the composite
channel describes the measured CDF very accurately. Moreover,
comparing with Loo distribution, it can be observed that both
models show a very good performance for modelling the
rst-order statistics of received power. However, the two

distributions, the proposed one and the Loo distribution do have

different statistical properties. This can be easily observed from
Fig. 7 in which the CDF of the IG distribution and lognormal
distribution are shown using the same mean value and standard
deviation of the amplitude of slow variations of signal derived
from measurements for the elevation angle interval 5060.
Summing up, the proposed LMS distribution should be tested
using new experimental datasets in various LMS scenarios (urban,
suburban etc.) and at various frequency bands.

In this paper, a new composite distribution is proposed for the LMS

channel modelling. The presented LMS channel model is based on an
assumption of the IG shadowing. First, by means of a Kolmogorov
Smirnov test, it was veried that the IG distribution can describe the
rst-order statistics of the large-scale component of the received
signal envelope for the case of the experimental data from [15, 16].
It has been found that the RMS value of the relative error is equal
to 22.7%. Motivated by this result, a new model for the received
signal envelope dened as the sum of a component which
incorporates the shadowing phenomena and whose amplitude is IG
distributed and a multipath component with a Rayleigh distributed
amplitude. Furthermore, a new time series generator was proposed
to synthesise time series of the received signal envelope using a
copula-based approach for the generation of correlated time series
of the large-scale effects. In the numerical results section, we
showed that the synthesiser of large-scale effects reproduces the
rst- and the second-order statistics of the shadowing phenomena
and that the synthesiser of the total signal envelope, i.e. the smalland the large-scale effects, reproduces the theoretical distribution
close to the CDFs derived from measurements.

7
Fig. 7 CDF of received power w.r.t. free space path loss using Lognormal
and IG distribution with parameters derived from the measurements for
elevation angle interval 5060

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

This work has been co-nanced by the European Union [European

Social Fund (ESF)] and Greek national funds through the
Operational Program Education and Lifelong Learning of the
National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) Research
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Funding Program: THALES-National Technical University of

Athens (NTUA): Reinforcement of the interdisciplinary and/or
interinstitutional research and innovation.

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