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I ntroduction

The continuous development of various wireless communication system services leads to a permanent necessity of analyzing the possibility
of their performance improvement. Unfortunately, signal propagation
in the wireless medium is accompanied by various side effects and drawbacks such as multipath fading and shadowing. Mathematical characterization of these complex phenomena, which describes various types
of propagation environments, has been presented in Chapter 2. First,
various models, already known in the literature, such as Rayleigh,
Rician, Hoyt, Nakagami-m, Weibull, -, -, and - fading models, used for the statistical modeling of multipath influence, have been
introduced. Then, some models for statistical modeling of shadowing influence, such as log-normal and gamma shadowing model, are
presented. Finally, composite models are discussed, which correspond
to the scenario when multipath fading is superimposed on shadowing. Suzuki, Rician-shadowing, and generalized K composite fading
models have been discussed. Further analysis has been extended in
Chapter 3, where some correlative fading models have been introduced, considering exponential, constant, and general types of correlation between random processes. In Chapter 4, several performance
measures related to the wireless communication system design, such
as average signal-to-noise ratio, outage probability, average symbol
error probability, amount of fading, level crossing rate, and average
fade duration, have been defined and mathematically modeled. Basic
concepts of several space diversity reception techniques, such as maximal ratio combining, equal gain combining, selection combining, and
switch-and-stay combining, have also been portrayed, with emphasis on the evaluation of reception performance measures. Necessity
and the validity of space diversity technique usage, from the point of
view of multipath fading and CCI influence mitigation, have been
shown in Chapter 5, where single-channel receiver performances have
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2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

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Fa d in g a n d In t erf eren c e Miti g ati o n

been evaluated for a few general propagation models. Performance

improvement at the receiver, achieved by application of diversity reception techniques through the standard performance criteria, has been
considered in Chapter 6. Cases of uncorrelated multichannel reception, like diversity reception cases over correlated fading channels,
have also been analyzed. Necessity and validity of the macrodiversity reception usage, from the point of view of multipath fading and
shadowing mitigation through the second-order statistical measures
at the output of the macrodiversity receiver, have been considered in
Chapter 7. Finally, in Chapter 8, channel capacity analysis under various adaptation policies and diversity techniques over fading channels
has been provided.
As already mentioned in the Preface, this work could help extension
of subjects that are normally covered in standard Digital Communi
cation and Signal Processing courses. However, since applications
chosen for analyzing correspond to practical systems, the performance
study provided in this book will have far more than academic value.
The presented collection of system performances will help researchers
and system designers to perform trade-off studies among the various
communication type/drawback combinations in order to determine
the optimal choice in the presence of their available constraints.

2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC