EXAM PROBLEMS IN MOBILE COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

DR. MOHAMMAD M. BANAT

1) Define the following terms of a cellular wireless communication system (no more than
two lines per definition):
1.a. Cell
1.b. Base Station
1.c. Mobile Station
1.d. Downlink
1.e. Uplink
1.f. Handoff
1.g. Co-Channel Interference
1.h. Mobile Switching Center
1.i. Channel Reuse Factor
1.j. Control Channel
2) Consider a cellular wireless communication system with Q cells equally distributed over
M clusters of cells.
2.a. Explain the effect on co-channel interference if M is increased, while the cell
size is kept fixed.
2.b. Explain the effect on the system capacity if M is increased, while the cell size is
kept fixed.
2.c. If Q  190 and M  10 ,
2.c.1. What is the frequency reuse factor?
2.c.2. If each cell is assigned 50 frequency division duplex channels each with a
40 kHz bandwidth, what is the total system bandwidth?
2.c.3. Give an illustrative sketch showing cells and co-channel cells.
3) A trunked mobile cellular network divides its coverage area into 400 cells and assigns 25
channels to each cell. Assume that each user of the mobile network makes an average of
one call per hour, and that the average call duration is 4.8 minutes. Assume that the
allowed blocking probability is 2%.
3.a. Determine the average traffic intensity carried by each user.
3.b. Determine the number of users per cell that can be supported at this grade of
service (GOS).
3.c. Determine the total number of network users that can be supported.
 3.d. State what happens to the supported number of network users if
3.d.1. The average call duration is doubled.
3.d.2. The acceptable blocking probability if increased.
3.d.3. The number of channels per cell is decreased.
4) Let the measured power at 100 m from a transmitter be equal to -4 dBm. Assume a path
loss exponent of 3.8, and a log-normal shadowing effect with a standard deviation of 6.24
dB.
4.a. Determine the average received signal power at a distance of 2.5 km from the
transmitter.
4.b. In terms of the Q function, determine the probability that the received signal
power at a distance of 2.5 km from the transmitter exceeds -50 dBm. Show details
of your computation.
5) Discuss briefly the following:
5.a. Generation of the multipath effect in mobile communication systems.
5.b. Use of diversity in mobile communication systems.
5.c. Use of code division multiple access in mobile communications systems.
5.d. Methods to improve coverage and increase capacity of cellular systems.
5.e. Differences between small- and large-scale fading models.
5.f. The Doppler effect in mobile communication systems.
6) Consider the multipath power delay profile
Pr ( )  P0   ( )  0.1 (  1)  0.05 (  3)  0.01 (  4.5) 
where P0 is a constant, and delays are in units of µs.
6.a. Calculate the mean excess delay.
6.b. Calculate the RMS delay spread.
6.c. Calculate the 90% and 50% frequency correlation coherence bandwidths.
7) A non-coherent binary FSK communication system operating in zero-mean additive
white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and slow flat fading has a conditional bit error probability
given by:
1
P (e  b )  e  Eb 2 N 0
2
Where Eb is the bit energy, N 0 is the one-sided AWGN power spectral density and  is
the fading random variable, distributed following the probability density function
1
f ( x )   ( x  1.25)  2 ( x  1)   ( x  0.75)
4
7.a. What is the average signal to noise ratio?
7.b. Determine the average bit probability of error, taking into account the fading
 effect.
7.c. Sketch the error probability with and without fading, showing how the error
probability is affected by fading.
8) A mobile moving at a speed of 20 m/s receives three multipath components of a signal
transmitted at a carrier frequency of 1000 MHz. Components are received with delays
 i  i µs, powers pi  50  10i dBm and phases  i  i  12 for i  0,1, 2 . Let the
mobile be moving towards the direction of arrival of the first and third components and
opposite to the direction of arrival of the second component.
8.a. Compute the narrowband instantaneous power at t  0.1, 0.2, 0.3 s.
8.b. Compute the average narrowband power received in the interval  0.1, 0.3 .
9) Consider a cellular wireless communication system.
9.a. Define the terms “handoff”, “call blocking” and “call loss”.
9.b. Explain the role of each factor affecting call loss during handoff.
9.c. Briefly describe fixed and dynamic channel assignment strategies.
9.d. Explain the differences between fixed and dynamic channel assignment strategies
in terms of their call blocking probabilities, and in terms of how both strategies
deal with call blocking.
10) Consider a cellular wireless communication system with K cells equally distributed over
M clusters of cells. Let the cell radius be R . Consider only the first layer of co-channel
interferers. Assuming there are 6 interferers all at the same distance from the mobile
station.
10.a. What is the channel reuse factor?
10.b. What is distance between nearest co-channel cells?
10.c. Give an expression of the signal to co-channel interference.
10.d. If the path loss exponent n  2.8 , K  190 and M  10 ,
10.d.1. What is the signal to co-channel interference in dB?
10.d.2. If each cell is assigned 40 FDD channels each with a 60 kHz bandwidth,
what is the total system bandwidth?
10.d.3. Fixing M  10 , what would be the minimum K so that the signal to co-
channel interference does not fall below 20 dB?
11) A trunked mobile cellular network divides its coverage area into 400 cells and assigns 20
channels to each cell. Assume that each user of the mobile network makes an average of
1.25 calls per hour, and that the average call duration is 3.6 minutes. Assume that the
allowed blocking probability is 2%.
11.a. Determine the average traffic intensity carried by each user.
 11.b. Determine the number of users per cell that can be supported at this grade of
service (GOS).
11.c. Determine the total number of network users that can be supported.
11.d. Calculate the supported number of network users if
11.d.1. The average number of calls per hour is doubled.
11.d.2. The acceptable blocking probability is doubled.
11.d.3. The number of channels per cell is halved.
12) Let the measured average power received at 100 m from a transmitter be equal to -8
dBm. Assume a path loss exponent of 3.3, and a log-normal shadowing effect with a
standard deviation of 6.25 dB.
12.a. Determine the distance from the transmitter at which the average received power
is equal to -50 dBm.
12.b. In terms of the Q function, determine the probability that the received signal
power at a distance of 2.5 km from the transmitter exceeds -50 dBm. Show details
of your computation.