UNIT 3 - Mobile Radio

Propagation: Small-Scale
Fading and Multipath
 Small-Scale Multipath Propagation
• The three most important effects
– Rapid changes in signal strength over a small travel distance or time
interval
– Random frequency modulation due to varying Doppler shifts on different
multipath signals
– Time dispersion caused by multipath propagation delays
• Factors influencing small-scale fading
– Multipath propagation: reflection objects and scatters
– Speed of the mobile: Doppler shifts
– Speed of surrounding objects
– Transmission bandwidth of the signal
• The received signal will be distorted if the transmission bandwidth is greater
than the bandwidth of the multipath channel.
• Coherent bandwidth: bandwidth of the multipath channel.
• Doppler Shift
– A mobile moves at a constant velocity v, along a path segment having
length d between points X and Y.
– Path length difference
l  d cos  vt cos
– Phase change
2l 2vt
   cos 
 
– Doppler shift

1  v
fd    cos 
2 t 
 Impulse Response Model of a Multipath Channel
• A mobile radio channel may be modeled as a linear filter with a time
varying impulse response
– time variation is due to receiver motion in space
– filtering is due to multipath

• The channel impulse response can be expressed as h(d,t). Let x(t)

represent the transmitted signal, then the received signal y(d,t) at
position d can be expressed as

y ( d , t )  x (t )  h ( d , t )   
x ( )h(d , t   )d
• For a causal system t
y (d , t )  
x ( )h(d , t   )d
• The position of the receiver can be expressed as
d  vt
• We have
t
y ( vt, t )  
x ( )h( vt, t   )d
• Since v is a constant, y (vt, t ) is just a function of t.
t
y (t ) 
 
x ( )h(vt, t   )d
• In general, the channel impulse response can be expressed h (t , )
– t : time variation due to motion
–  : channel multipath delay for a fixed value of t.
• With the channel impulse responseh (t , ) , we may have the output
t
y (t )  

x ( )h(t , )d  x (t )  h(t , )

• For bandlimited bandpass channel, thenh (t , ) may be equivalently

described by a complex baseband impulse responsehb (t , )
– The equivalent baseband output
1 1 1 1
r (t )  c(t )  hb (t , ) or r (t )  c(t )  hb (t , )
2 2 2 2
x(t )  Rec(t ) exp( jct )
1
r (t )  c(t )  hb (t , )
2
y(t )  Rer (t ) exp( jct )
• Discretize the multipath delay axis  into equal time delay segments
called excess delay bins.
• The baseband response of a multipath channel can be expressed as
N 1
hb (t , )   ai (t , ) exp  j 2f c i (t )  j (t , )  (   i (t ))
i 0

ai (t , :) amplitude of the ith multipath component

 i (t :) excess delay of ith multipath component
• Define i (t , )  2f c i (t )   (t , )
• If the channel impulse response is assumed to be time invariant, the
channel impulse response may be simplified as
N 1
hb ( )   ai exp  j i  (   i )
i 0

• The impulse response may be measured by using a probing pulse p (t )

which approximates a delta function.
p(t )   (t   )
 Small-Scale Multipath Measurement

• Multipath channel measurement techniques

– Direct pulse measurements
– Spread spectrum sliding correlator measurements
– Swept frequency measurements
 Direct RF Pulse System

• Direct RF pulse system

– This system transmits a repetitive pulse of width bb , and uses a
receiver with a wideband filter with bandwidth BW  2 /  bb
– Envelope detector to detect the amplitude response.
• Minimum resolvable delay  bb

• No phase information can be measured.

 Frequency Domain Channel Sounding
• Dual relationship between time domain and frequency domain.
• It is possible to measure the channel impulse response in the
frequency domain.
• Measure the frequency domain response and then converted to the
time domain using inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT).
 Parameters of Mobile Multipath Channels
• Time dispersion parameters (time domain) (time dispersive nature of
the channel)
• Coherent bandwidth (frequency domain) (time dispersive nature of
the channel)
• Doppler spread and coherent time (time varying nature of the
channel)

• Power delay profiles for different types of channels are different

Indoor
Outdoor
 Time Dispersion Parameters
Depends only on the relative amplitude of the multipath components.
• Typical RMS delay spreads
– Outdoor: on the order of microseconds
– Indoor: on the order of nanoseconds
• Maximum excess delay (X dB) is defined to be the time delay during
which multipath energy falls to X dB below the maximum.

excess delay   X   0

 X : maximum delay at which a multipath component is within X dB

 0 : delay for the first arriving signal
• Time dispersion parameters
– mean excess delay
– RMS delay spread
– excess delay spread
• Mean excess delay
 k k
a 2
 P( ) k k
  k
 k

 k
a 2

k
 P( ) k
k

• RMS delay spread

   2  ( 2 )

where
 k k
a 2 2
 k k
P ( ) 2

2  k
 k

 k
a 2

k
 P(
k
k )
 Coherent Bandwidth
• Coherent bandwidth, Bc , is a statistic measure of the range of
frequencies over which the channel can be considered to be “flat”.
• Bc is inversely proportional to rms delay spread.
• Two sinusoids with frequency separation greater than Bc are affected
quite differently by the channel.
• If the coherent bandwidth is defined as the bandwidth over which the
frequency correlation function is above 0.9, then the coherent
bandwidth is approximately
1
Bc 
50 
• If the frequency correlation function is above 0.5
1
Bc 
5 
 Doppler Spread and Coherent Time
• Doppler spread and coherent time are parameters which describe the
time varying nature of the channel in a small-scale region.
• When a pure sinusoidal tone of f c is transmitted, the received signal
spectrum, called the Doppler spectrum, will have components in the
range f c  f d and f c  f d , where f d is the Doppler shift.

C hannel

fc fc  fd fc fc  fd

• f d is a function of the relative velocity of the mobile, and the angle

between the direction of motion of the mobile and direction of arrival
of the scattered waves
• Coherent time TC is the time domain dual of Doppler spread.
• Coherent time is used to characterize the time varying nature of the
frequency dispersiveness of the channel in the time domain.
1
TC 
fm
f m : maximum Doppler shift given by f m  v / 

• Two signals arriving with a time separation greater than TC are

affected differently by the channel
• A statistic measure of the time duration over which the channel
impulse response is essentially invariant.
• If the coherent time is defined as the time over which the time
corrleation function is above 0.5, then
9
TC 
16f m
 Types of Small-Scale Fading

• Multipath delay spread leads to time dispersion and frequency

selective fading.
• Doppler spread leads to frequency dispersion and time selective
fading.
• Multipath delay spread and Doppler spread are independent of one
another.
 Flat Fading
• If the channel has a constant gain and linear phase response over a
bandwidth which is greater than the bandwidth of the transmitted
signal, the received signal will undergo flat fading.
• The received signal strength changes with time due to fluctuations in
the gain of the channel caused by multipath.
• The received signal varies in gain but the spectrum of the
transmission is preserved.
• Flat fading channel is also called amplitude varying channel.
• Also called narrow band channel: bandwidth of the applied signal is
narrow as compared to the channel bandwidth.
• Time varying statistics: Rayleigh flat fading.
• A signal undergoes flat fading if
BS  BC
and
TS  
TS : reciprocal bandwidth (symbol period)
BS : bandwidth of the transmitt ed signal
BC : coherent bandwidth
 : rms delay spread
 Frequency Selective Fading
• If the channel possesses a constant-gain and linear phase response
over a bandwidth that is smaller than the bandwidth of transmitted
signal, then the channel creates frequency selective fading.
signal spectrum S ( f )

channel response

f
BC

received signal spectrum

f
• Frequency selective fading is due to time dispersion of the
transmitted symbols within the channel.
– Induces intersymbol interference
• Frequency selective fading channels are much more difficult to model
than flat fading channels.
• Statistic impulse response model
– 2-ray Rayleigh fading model
– computer generated
– measured impulse response
• For frequency selective fading
BS  BC
and
TS   
• Frequency selective fading channel characteristic
 Fading Effects Due to Doppler Spread
• Fast Fading: The channel impulse response changes rapidly within the
symbol duration.
– The coherent time of the channel is smaller then the symbol period of
the transmitted signal.
– Cause frequency dispersion due to Doppler spreading.
• A signal undergoes fast fading if
TS  TC
and
BS  BD
• Slow Fading: The channel impulse response changes at a rate much
slower than the transmitted baseband signal s(t).
– The Doppler spread of the channel is much less then the bandwidth of
the baseband signal.
• A signal undergoes slow fading if
TS  TC
and
BS  BD
 Rayleigh Distributions
• It can be assumed that x and y are Gaussian random variables with
mean equal to zero due to the following reasons
– n is usually very large.
– The individual amplitude ai are random.
– The phases  have a uniform distribution.
i
• Because x and y are independent random variables, the joint distribution
p(x,y) is
1  x2  y2 
p ( x, y )  p ( x ) p( y )  exp   
2 2  2 2 
 
• The distribution p( r ,  ) can be written as a function of p ( x, y )

p(r, )  J p( x, y )
x / r x /  cos   r sin 
J   r
y / r y /  sin  r cos 
 Rayleigh Distributions
• We have
r  r2 
p( r,  )  exp   2 
2 2  2 
 
• The Rayleigh distribution has a pdf given by
 r  r2 
2  2 exp   2  r0
p( r )   p( r, )d    2 
 

0

 0 otherwise
: rms value of the received signal before envelop detection
 2: time - average power of the received signal before envelop detection
• The sum of two quadrature Gaussian noise signals
• Used to describe statistical time varying nature of the Rxd
envelope of a flat fading signal
or
the envelope of an individual multipath component.
• Cumulative distribution function (CDF)

R  R2 
P( R)  Pr( r  R)   p( r )dr  1  exp   2 
0
 2 
• The mean value of the Rayleigh distribution is given by
 
rmean  E[r ]   rp( r )dr    1.2533
0 2
• The variance of the Rayleigh distribution is given by
  2
  E[r ]  E [r ]   r p( r )dr 
2
r
2 2 2
0 2
 
   2    0.4292 2
2

 2
 Ricean distribution
• When there is a dominant stationary (non fading) signal
component present, such as LOS path, the small scale
fading envelope distribution is Ricean.

• As the dominant signal becomes weaker, the composite

signal resembles a noise that of Rayleigh.

• The dominant path decrease in amplitude, the Ricean

distribution degenerates to a Rayleigh distribution.
 Ricean distribution
• By following similar steps described in Rayleigh distribution, we obtain

 r  r 2  A2   Ar 
 exp   I
2  0 2 
A  0, r  0
p( r )   2  2    
 r0
 0
where
 Ar  1 2  Ar cos  
I0  2  
   2
0
exp 
 
2 d

is the modified Bessel function of the first kind and zero-order.
• The Ricean distribution is often described in terms of a parameter K
which is defined as the ratio between the deterministic signal power
and the variance of the multipath. It is given by K  A2 /( 2 2 ) or in
terms of dB

A2
K (dB)  10 log 2 dB
2
 Ricean distribution
• The parameter K is known as the Ricean factor and completely
specifies the Ricean distribution.
• As A  0, we have K   dB. The dominant path decrease in
amplitude, the Ricean distribution degenerates to a Rayleigh
distribution.