Mobile Communications

Part IV- Propagation Characteristics

Multi-path Propagation - Fading

Professor Z Ghassemlooy
School of Computing, Engineering and
Information Sciences, University of Northumbria
U.K.
http://soe.unn.ac.uk/ocr
Z. Ghassemlooy

Contents

Fading
Doppler Shift
Dispersion
Summary

Z. Ghassemlooy

Fading
Is due to multipath propagation.

With respect to a stationary base station, multipath

propagation creates a stochastic standing wave pattern,
through which the mobile station moves.

Caused by shadowing:
when the propagation environment is changing
significantly, but this fading is typically much slower than
the multipath fading.

Modem design is affected mainly by the faster

multipath fading, which can be normally assumed to
be locally wide-sense stationary (WSS).
Z. Ghassemlooy

Multipath Propagation - Fading

Diffracted
wave
a
b

Antenna

y=a+b

a & b are in phase

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No direct path

Reflected
wave
a
b

Antenna

y=0

a & b are out of phase by

Complete fading when
2d/ = n, d is the path difference

Multipath Propagation - contd.

For a stationary mobile unit with no direct path, the
received signal can be expressed as a sum of delayed
components or in terms of phasor notation:
N

Pulse train

S r t ai P t i
i 1

A single pulse

S r (t ) ai cos (2f c i )
i 1

Where: ai is the amplitude of the scattered signal,

p(t) is the transmitted signal (pulse) shape,
i is the time taken by the pulse to reach the receiver,
N is the number of different paths
fc is the carrier frequency
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Fading - Types

Signal strength relative to 1uV (db)

Slow (Long) Term

Fast (Short) Term (Also known as Rayleigh fading)
30
Fast fading
20
10
Slow fading
0

10

15

20

25 Distance ()

Exact representation of fading characteristics is not possible,

because of infinite number of situation.
Z. Ghassemlooy

Fading - Slow (Long) Term

Slower variation in mean signal strength (distance 12 km)
Produced by movement over much longer distances
Caused by:
- Terrain configuration (hill, flat area etc.):
Results in local mean (long term fading) attenuation
and fluctuation.
- The built environment (rural and urban areas etc.),
between base station and the mobile unit:
Results in local mean attenuation
Z. Ghassemlooy

Fading - Slow (Long) Term

Receiver
n,2

n,3

path n

Sr(t)
n,1

r
o

LOS

Transmitter

k,1

k,2

k,4

one
subpath

k,3
path k

Number of path
N

S r t ai P0 t i
i 1

path attenuation factor

for the ith path
Z. Ghassemlooy

C. D. Charalambous et al

Fading- Fast (Short) Term

Describes the constant amplitude fluctuations in the received
signal as the mobile moves.
Caused by
- multipath reflection of transmitted signal by local scatters
(houses, building etc.)
- random fluctuations in the received power

Observed over distances = /2

Signal variation up to 30 dB.
Is a frequency selective phenomenon.
Can be described using
- Rayleigh statistics, (no line of sight).
- Rician statistics, (line of sight).
Z. Ghassemlooy

Fading- Fast (Short) Term - contd.

A received signal amplitude is given as the sum of delayed
components. In terms of phasor notation it is given as:
N

S r (t ) ai cos (2f c i )
i 1

Or
N

i 1

i 1

S r (t ) cos(2f c t ) ai cos (i ) sin( 2f c t ) ai sin(i )

In-phase
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Quadrature

Fading- Fast (Short) Term - contd.

The phase i can be assumed to be uniformly distributed in
the range (0, 2), provided the locations of buildings etc. are
completely random.
For a large N, the amplitude of the received signal is:

S r (t ) X cos(2f c t ) Y sin( 2f c t )
where

i 1

i 1

X ai cos (i ), Y ai sin(i )

X and Y are independent, identically distributed Gaussian random

variables.
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Fading- Fast (Short) Term - contd.

The envelope of the received signal is:
2

2 0.5

A (X Y )

Which will be Rayleigh distributed:

Assuming all components received
have approximately the same power
and that all are resulting from scattering.

Rayleigh
Probability
density
function
Exponential

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A or power P

r
r2

p r 2 exp
2

2
Where 0< r < , is

variance of A (the total received

power in the multipath signal).

Ricean Fading
If there is one direct component in addition to scattered
components, the envelope received multipath is Ricean,
where the impulse response has a non zero mean.
Ricean distribution = Rayleigh signal + direct line of sight
signal. The distribution is:
r 2 s 2 rs
r
I
p r 2 exp
2 0
2

2 is the power of the line of sight signal and I0 is a Bessel function of

the first kind
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Fading- Fast (Short) Term - contd.

The probability that the realization of the random variable has a value smaller than x is defined by the cumulative
distribution function:
Applying it to the Rayleigh distribution

For small r

cdf (r ) pdf (u )du

cdf ( r ) 1 exp ( r 2 / 2 2 )

cdf ( r ) ~ r 2 / 2 2

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Fast Fading Cases 1: Stationary Mobile

6
v
1

2
Stationary

3
3
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4
v

Field strength

Fast Fading Cases 1

The number of fading depends on:
Traffic flow
Distance between the mobile and moving cars

The received signal at the MU is:

N

S r t ai P0 t i
i 1

i i
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Fast Fading Cases 1

where i is additional relative delay (positive or negative)
and
Thus

envelope

i 1

S r t x (t ) e j 2 f c t jo

x t ao

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a
i 1

j 2 f c i

Fast Fading Cases 2

1 = d1/c
2 = d2/c
1(t1)

2(t2)

S t x t exp jc exp jc t
N

x t ac ai t exp jc i t
i 1

18

No scattered signals

Field strength

Fast Fading Cases 3: Non-stationary

Mobile
Signal level

The received signal at the mobile is:

sr (t ) ao e

j ( 2 f c o x cos )

Amplitude

Wave number =2/

Transmitting frequency

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x = Vt

Fast Fading Cases 3: Doppler Frequency

A moving object causes the frequency of a received wave to
change
Substituting for and x, the expression for the received signal is

sr (t ) ao e
The Doppler
frequency
The received
signal frequency
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fD

V
j 2 ( f c cos ) t

V
cos f m cos

f r f c f m cos

Fast Fading Cases 3: Doppler Frequency

When = 0o (mobile moving away from the transmitter)

fr fc fm
When = 90o (I.e. mobile circling around)

fr fc
When = 180o (mobile moving towards the transmitter)

fr fc fm
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Fast Fading Cases 4: Moving MU +

Stationary Scatterer

Voltage

Standing Wave Pattern

x(t)
so(t)
MU
t=0
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so(t)

t = round trip time

Fast Fading Cases 4

Received signal at the MU:

sr (t ) ao e j 2 f ct o Vt cos

and for q = 0

sr (t ) ao e

j 2 f c t o Vt

ao e

Incident signal

j 2 f c t o Vt 2 f c

Reflected signal

2f c j 2 f ct o f c
sr (t ) j 2ao sin Vt
e
2

Fading with zero amplitude occurs when

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Vt n f c

Fast Fading Cases 5: Moving MU and

Scatterers
The resultant received signal is the sum of all the scattered
waves from different angles qi depending upon the momentary
attitude of the various scatterers.
N

sr (t ) ao ai e
i 1

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j 2 f c t o Vt cos i i

Channel Fading Effects

Transmitting a short pulse over a
(i) frequency-selective (time-spread) fading channel:
Transmitted

Received

Tp

t
Tp + dt

(ii) time-selective (Doppler-spread) fading channel:

Transmitted

Tp
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Received

Tp

Effects of Doppler shifts

Bandwidth of the signal could increase or decrease leading to
poor and/or missed reception.
The effect in time is coherence time variation and signal
distortion
Coherence time: Time duration over which channel impulse response is
invariant, and in which two signals have strong potential for amplitude
correlation
Coherence time is expressed by:
9

Tc

2
16f D-max

where fD-max is the maximum Doppler shift, which occurs when = 0 degrees

To avoid distortion due to motion in the channel, the symbol

rate must be greater than the inverse of coherence time.
Z. Ghassemlooy

Coherence Distance
Coherence distance is the minimum distance
between points in space for which the signals are
mostly uncorrelated.
This distance is usually grater than 0.5
wavelengths, depending on antenna beamwidth
and angle of arrival distribution.
At the BTS, it is common practice to use spacing
of about 10 and 20 wavelengths for low-medium
and high antenna heights, respectively (120 o
sector antennas).
Z. Ghassemlooy

Coherence Bandwidth (Bc)

Range of frequency over which channel is flat
It is the bandwidth over which two frequencies have a
strong potential for amplitude correlation
Power
Signal bandwidth Bs
Describes frequency selective
phenomenon of fast fading
Coherence
Bandwidth Bc

Freq.

Effect of frequency selective fading on the received signal spectrum

Z. Ghassemlooy

Estimation of Coherence Bandwidth

Coherence bandwidth is estimated using the value of delay
spread of the channel, st
For correlation > 0.9
For correlation > 0.5

Bc
Bc

0.2
t

0.02
t

Delay spread figures

Delay in

at 900 MHz

microseconds

Urban

1.3

Urban, worst-case

10 - 25

spreads for various types

Suburban, typical

0.2 - 0.31

Suburban, extreme

1.96 - 2.11

of terrain:

Indoor, maximum

0.27

Typical values of delay

Delay Spread at 1900 MHz

Buildings, average

0.07 - 0.094

Buildings, worst -

1.47

case

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Channel Classification
Based on Time-Spreading

Flat Fading

Frequency Selective

1. BS < BC Tm < Ts
2. Rayleigh, Ricean distrib.
3. Spectral chara. of transmitted
signal preserved

1. BS > BC Tm > Ts
2. Intersymbol Interference
3. Spectral chara. of transmitted
signal not preserved
4. Multipath components resolved
Channel

Channel

Signal

Signal
BC
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BS

freq.

BS

BC

freq.
C. D. Charalambous et al

Fading in Digital Mobile Communications

If Bs>> Bc, then a notch appears in the spectrum. Thus
resulting in inter-symbol interference (ISI).
- To overcome this, an adaptive equaliser (AE) with
inverse response may be used at the receiver.
Training sequences are transmitted to update AE.
If Bs<< Bc, then flat fading occurs, resulting in a
burst of error.
- Error correction coding is used to overcome this
problem.
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Multipath Delay Spread

First-arrival delay (A)
Mean excess delay

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e ( A ) P ( )d

Multipath Delay Spread

The standard deviation of the distribution of multipath signal
amplitudes is called delay spread. For directive antenna is
characterized by the rms delay spread of the entire delay
profile, which is defined as:
2
rms
Pj 2j ( avg ) 2
j

where
avg = j Pj j ,
j is the delay of the j th delay component of the profile
Pj = (power in the j th delay component) / (total power in all components

Delay spread varies with the terrain with typical values for rural, urban and
suburban areas:

0.2s rural

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3.0 s urban

0.5s suburban

Multipath Delay Spread - Dispersion

The delay spread limits the maximum data rate:
No new impulses should arrive at the receiver before the last replica
of the pervious impulse has perished.
Otherwise symbol spreads (dispersion) into its adjacent slot, thus
resulting in Inter

Transmitted
symbols

Symbol Interference (ISI)

Received
symbols

The signal arrived at the receiver directly and phase shifted

Distorted signal depending on the phases of the different parts
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Mitigation Techniques for the Multipath

Fading Channel
Space diversity
Signals at the same frequency using two or three antennas located
several wavelengths a part.

Antennas are connected to two or three radio receivers.

The receiver will the strongest signal is elected
Disadvantage: Uses two or more antennas, therefore the
need for a large site.

Frequency diversity
Signals at different frequencies received by the same antenna
very rarely fade simultaneously. Thus the use of several carrier
frequencies or the use of a wideband signal to combat fading.
A single aerial connected to a number receiver, each tuned to a
different frequency, whose outputs are connected in parallel.
The receiver with the strongest instantaneous signal will provide
the output.
Disadvantage: Uses two or more frequencies to transmit
the same signal.
Z. Ghassemlooy

Mitigation Techniques for the Multipath

Fading Channel
Time diversity Spread out the effects of errors
through interleaving and coding
Multipath diversity
Consider the tapped delay line model of a channel
shown previously
If multipaths can be put together coherently at the
receiver, diversity improvement results
This is what the RAKE receiver does (see next
viewgraph)

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RAKE Multipath Signal Processing

R.E. Ziemer 2002

Z. Ghassemlooy

System Design and Performance

Prediction
Base station placement dependent on

Propagation environment
Anticipated geographic distribution of users
Economic considerations (minimize number of base stations)
Political and public opinion considerations
Traffic types (3G)

Performance figure of merit

Spectrum efficiency for voice: v voice circuits/MHz/base station
Spectrum efficiency for information: i bps/MHz/base station
Dropped call rate fraction of calls ended prematurely

Z. Ghassemlooy

Summary

The random fluctuations in the received power are due to

fading.
If there is a relative motion between transmitter and receiver
(mobile) the result is Doppler shift
If maximum Doppler shift is less than the data rate, there
is slow fading channel.
If maximum Doppler shift is larger than the data rate, there
is fast fading channel.

Z. Ghassemlooy

Questions and Answers

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Next lecture: Modulation Techniques

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