2016 2nd IEEE International Conference on Computer and Communications
UWB Muitipath Propagation Channel Characteristics Based on Time-Domain Ray
Tracing
Zhao Hongmei, Yao Hailong, Shi Kunfeng, Guo Shuting
Zhengzhou University of Light Industry
Zhengzhou, China
e-mail: zhhm@zzuli.edu.cn
Abstract-The uniform geometrical theory of diffraction (UTD)
and ray tracing technique is used to simulate ultra wideband
(UWB) signal multipath propagation characteristics.
According to the simulation results, the article presents the
parameters of the double exponential decay model using
cluster method in the office. A piecewise exponential multipath
channel model is proposed for multipath power delay
distribution (PDP), which is suitable for long distance from
indoor to corridor, and the slow fading channel on the indoor
and corridor is proved by using Doppler expansion.
Keywords-UTD; ray tracing; UWB; multipath channel model
I. INTRODUCTION
UWB multipath channel model has experienced the
evolution of multiple processes, including single Poisson
model, /!.-K model, double cluster model, the modified
S - V model proposed by Intel and the use of standard
channel model recommended by IEEE 802.15.3a Committee.
The standard channel model is a modification of the S - V
model for broadband signal, four groups channel
characteristics was extracted from the typical communication
environment with the signal bandwidth changing from 2GHz
to 8GHz. In the cluster model, the mean square value of
amplitude for the received signal is subject to bi-exponential
attenuation regularities, and the statistical attenuation
characteristics conforms to lognormal distribution [1].
However, the model for non-measurement environment can
only make a certain level of promotion, not suitable for most
scenarios. Since the limitations in IEEE 802.15.3a model,
IEEE802.15 Aa standard increased the number of UWB
channel model to 8, which expanded the application of
measuring distance, amended the multipath delay power
distribution model in the absence of direct path of office and
industrial environments, and added small scale fading model
with whose amplitude was complied with Nakagami
distribution [2,3]. In some serious shadowed cases, the PDP
of non-line-of-sight (NLOS) is no longer cluster envelope,
and the measured PDP data are quite different with a
standard curve fitting. Literature [4] proposed a new
piecewise exponential model that applied to Hard-NLOS
scene in the office, but this model requires more
environmental measurements to support and verify.
In this paper, the time domain ray tracing method and
UTD is used to research muitipath signal propagation
978-1-4673-9026-2/ 16/$ 31 .00 ©20 16 IEEE
characteristics of UWB simulation model in a complex
office and office to corridors environment. The parameters of
multipath channel model is obtained by deterministic
modeling method.
II. SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT
The paper selected the office and outdoor corridor for
simulation environment as shown in Fig 1. Specific objects
include office tables, computers, double-metal doors, single-
metal doors, file cabinets, laboratory furniture, material
cabinet, wooden locker, vertical air conditioning and water
dispenser. The OA-meter-thick brick wall is bushed with
gypsum powder. The material of floor, corridor and ceiling
respectively are wooden, ceramic tile and aluminum.
After finished drawing the office furniture model with
AutoCAD, the data were imported to simulation software.
The transmitter (Tx 1) is located in the center of the office
(1.5m, 3m, l.2m) with radiant power 10dBm. The waveform
is Gaussian pulse at bandwidth of 2GHz with center
frequency of 7.3GHz. There are 27 circular receiver sets at
the height of 0.9m and the radius of O.2m. The rays of
refraction, transmission and diffraction are set to 4, 5, 1on
account of secondary reflection and transmission number no
longer increases. Shooting-and-bouncing-ray (SBR) method
is used in the simulation.
III. MULTIP A THPROFILE AND CLUSTER
CHARACTERISTICS
A. Multipath Profile and Clustering of Indoor
Multipath power profile can be acquired on the basis of
simulation results in accordance with the following equation.
N
h 2 (k) = ~]aJ 8(k-T,,) (1)
n=1
where, Tn is the time delay of each component.
Corresponding component of each receiver appears in
difference time and location, it needs statistical average for
each receiver sets in the circular position so as to eliminate
the effects of multipath intensity fluctuates. The timeline is
divided into intervals of ~ T for the purpose of generating
the corresponding component group as accurately as possible
to reflect the overall trend of the multipath profile. The
average power is taken within the time interval and denoted
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as h 2i0, ava" (k) .The indoor environment is divided into LOS blocking, and indoor to corridor is Hard-NLOS environment.

or Soft-NLOS depending on whether there is a slight

Figure I. Plan of simulation environment.

The clusters are obvious by comparing each multipath
profile, which can be explained when the multipath
components arrive at the receiver, the phenomenon of the
time delay and the angular domain clustering or the arrival of
a group is generated [5]. Automatic clustering rules are as
follows
1) The first path arrival time is set to 0;
2) Two adjacent multipath component value that
exclude first component and nonzero is denoted
as h\,avg(TJ
<!1T
to 18m, as shown in Fig 4; in the range of 18 to 31m, the
phenomenon emerging is similar to Fig 3, in remote location
signal with large time delay declines slowly, as shown in Fig
5 and Fig 6. It is clear that the clustering method which is
used in indoor is also suitable for analyzing the
characteristics of the multipath in corridor that ranging from
4 to 18m, but the environment on the far side of the corridor,
clustering method is no longer applicable, need to find a new
way to analysis.
When
-9
x 10
1.
6 n:;r--~--~-~--~--~----,

Ti + 1 - Ti and
1.4

1.2
(2)

0.8
Consider that T i+1 is starting moment of next cluster,
0.6
!1d is threshold value;
0.4
3) After judging the cluster starting point Ti+ l ' skip
time 11k to the attenuation of signals between 0.2
clusters, to prevent the overlap between two clusters;
80 [00 [20
4) If Ti+ l - Ti >!1T , Ti+ l is determined directly as Relative TitHe Delays / ns

starting moment of next cluster. Figure 2. Clustering results of Rx I.

Through calculation and correction results, get!1T ,
!1d and 11k values of IOns, 4dB , 8ns respectively. Taking
-5
X 10
4 ,-~-~-~-,-~-~-~-~-,

an example of Rx 1 data, the clustering results are shown in

3.5
Fig 2, where the red dashed line represents the first
component of next cluster.
B. Corridor Environment Multipath Profile 2. 5

Characteristics
Indoor to corridor is the serious barrier NLOS
1.5
environment, transmitter is placed successively in point of
(1.5 , 3, 1.2), (5.5 , 3, 1.2), (10, 3, l.2). After statistical
processing of received signal in corridor fmding that signal
0.5
intensity gradually increases and then decreases in the
corridor within the range 0 to 4m, as shown in Fig 3, the o[ L
O _ru.tJtIl1l.lIb~LL[lLJj~J[00
strongest multipath component appears in the larger delay Delay/ ns
rather than at the first component; signal intensity shows
overall trend of attenuation in the corridor within the range 5 Figure 3. Average multipath profile of Rx 18.

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 4r
' ~IO_'~____~__~__~__~__- , t

3.5
W=re r (3)
The formula is used to estimate attenuation rate level r .
2.5 The equation of logarithmic and variable substitution is

u=A+Bt (4)
1.5

1
where, U = log W , A = logr and B = - - .The coefficient
r
matrix and the augmented matrix values are not equal, but
Del a y/ ns the rank of coefficient matrix equal to the column number of
the coeffIcient matrix , therefore we have the following
Figure 4. Average multipath profile ofRx21.
equation
4X 10
-,

3. 5

(5)
2. 5

1. 5 Hence, it has unique solution. In the LOS Soft-NLOS

environment, r doesn't change obvious, but signifIcant
changes with the increase of the distance between transmitter
and receivers. Through verifIcation of the 95% confIdence
level of the fItting with the lognormal distribution,
Dclay/ ns
cumulative distribution function (CDF) is shown in Fig 7.
Figure 5. Average multipath profile of Rx24.
-,
4r
' ~
lO __~__~____~__~__~__~

3.5 0.9

0.8

0.7

2.5 0.6

~O.5

0.4
1.5
0.3

0.2

0.1 17
I log r I
- Normal

9 10 11 12 13 14 15
101ogrl10-9

De lay/ ns
Figure 7. Empirical CDF of indoor.
Figure 6. Average multipath profile of Rx25.

B. Attenuation Rate Level within the Cluster

IV. MULTIPATH CHANNEL PARAMETERS AND
CHARACTERISTICS
A. Attenuation Rate Level b etween the Clusters
The complex impulse response (CIR) of the office and
corridor (4~ 18m) are analyzed by using the clustering
method. According to the experience and the analysis
method of the cluster model in the IEEE802.15 .3a
recommendation channel, the power of the fIrst component
of each cluster follows the exponential decay characteristic.
If there are N clusters in a multipath profIle, the fIrst
component power of the numbered I cluster is
arrival time is t[ , the empirical equation can be written as
The power value within each cluster follows the
exponential decay characteristic based on empirical formula.
The corresponding component value of each cluster is
( T;k ' ~k )' and the time delay is extracted from each
component that relative to fIrst component within cluster as
follows
(6)
(t'k ' ~k ) is an array with the value of the relative delay
~ , and component within the cluster. Adopting the same as
analytical method of equation (4 -1) , get the equation

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 t
exponential distribution. If T > 0 , the study times X obey
W =ae te (7) the Poisson distribution with parameters Ar 0 in the period
of T toT + ro'
where, rc is attenuation rate level within the cluster. The
rc value is got by existence and uniqueness of the least
squares solution that similar to the above method, CDF is (11)
shown in Fig 8.

Probability distribution function (PDF) of random

0.9
variable ~ r is got by using variable r to replace r 0 .

°
0.8

0.7
~ -A T >
0.6 p(r)= { /t,e ,r_ (12)
f 0.5 O,r <0
0.4

0.3
From the above analysis can be concluded that the
0.2
intervals between events obey exponential distribution with
0.1

6 8 10 12 14 16
parameter A = A / r 0 ' thus, it could get the estimated value
101ogyJ10· 9
of A through to choose maximum delay in multipath
Figure 8. Empirical CDF of indoor
profiles as the value ofro .

C. Arrival Rate of Cluster D. Arrival Rate of Component

Poisson distribution is used to describe the number of The analysis method is similar with the equation (12) .
clusters appearing in the time of duration. It is hypothesized The difference between the arrival times of the adjacent
that random variable X follows the Poisson distribution as multi path components in the multi path profile
follows is !1P=tik - t1k - 1 ' which can be used as the estimated value

-k of population mean 1 /A after statistical average.

A -
P{X = k} = _e- A (8) E. Amplitude Fading Characteristic of Small Scale
k! The small scale fading statistics of the data are derived
from the CIR of each receiver set. The m-Nakagami
The cluster number is M i in the numbered i that is distribution was used to describe the characteristics of small
among N muItipath profiles, the equation is scale channel fading in some literatures [6, 7]. The article
adopts the method of matching with typical distribution such
as lognormal distribution, the Nakagami distribution, the
M Gamma distribution and Weibull distribution to inspect
P{X =M.I -l}=-l
N
- =p~ (9)
characteristics of simulation data, and uses K-S and X 2 test
IMi
i= l to verify the matching degree at the same time. The pass rate
at the 95% confidence level is shown in table I.
where, X is random variable, p Xi is actual probability value.
An equation is constructed as below

- Simulation data
- Lognoramlfit

The optimal value of A can be obtained by using 0.1

-
-
Gamma fit
Nakagarnifit
-Weibullfit

optimization method of minimum value for Q( A) . 0.5 1.5 2 2.5 3.5

Amplitude

In the Poisson process, the time intervals between

Figure 9. Comparison of simulation data and typical distribution.
random events of numbered k and k + 1 comply with

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 According to the comparative results in Fig 9 and table I, Here, the parameters XI and X2 represent gain
it can be seen that the amplitude fading characteristics are
obey the lognormal distribution, and the second is the coefficient, K[ and K2 represent rate of change in rise and
Gamma distribution, the statistical parameters are shown in
fall phase, T p is peak time delay of PDP.
table II.
Taking the data of the transmitter (1.5 , 3, 1.2) and the
TABLE I. PASS RATE OF 95% UNDERTHE CONFIDENCE LEVEL rx18 receiver set as an example. Firstly, the FINDPEAKS
LOS/Soft-NLOS NLOS function of MATLAB is used to extract the power profile
K-S K-S
envelope to avoid the influence of a large number of weak
X2 X2 signals, then the parameters for logarithm of the envelope
Lognormal 93.75 100 90.91 100 signal are obtained by least square fitting as the following
Gatmna 75.00 100 72.73 100 table. Fitting results compared with the original data are
Weibull 75.00 100 63.64 100
shown in Fig 10.
Nakagami 56.25 37.50 27.27 36.36 TABLE Ill. PARAMETERS OF P[ECEWISE EXPONENTI ALMODEL

0.121, -0.047
TABLE II. PARAMETERS OF MVLTIPATH MODEL KI , K2
Parameters indoor(0- 6m) indoor( 6- 11 m) outdoor(4- 18m)
a, fJ -25.545, -22.209

r (ns) 7.39 24.82 11.35

1, 1
6.39 7.19 3.85 Xi' X2
rc
0.0438 0.052 0.0625 24.5ns
A [I /ns] Tp
A [l /ns] 1.118 0.676 0.855
Lognonnal x 10 P iece~' ise exponent iul fi tti ng
I. G ,----~-~ijl;j-~~-~~'_c_-~__,

,u (dB) -10.792 -11.416 -12.464

,,
,,
1.4

a 0.500 0.550 0.637 ,,,

1.2
,,
Gamma ,,
,,,
a 4.030 3.406 2.398 ,,
0. 8 ,,
0 0 0 ,,
b O. G
/ "
I
0. 4
V. A NOVEL MULTIPATH CHANNEL MODEL FOR INDOOR //
TO CORRIDOR
In the previous section, the cluster method is not suitable 80

for the Hard-NLOS environment in the far end of the Relative Ti.e Delays / ns

outdoor corridor, and the PDP is not very good to comply Figure 10. Piecewise exponential fitting.
with the model proposed by IEEE802.15.4a [6]
VI. DOPPLER EXTENSION OF INDOOR AND CORRIDOR
In multipath propagation, due to the difference in the
direction of the signal component, the arrival of the receiver
where, the parameter X describes the attenuation of the first signal phase is different, the Doppler diffusion phenomenon
is caused, and the bandwidth increased. Tx 1 is stationary and
component, the parameter Yrise determines how fast the PDP the receivers move at a speed of Im!s according to the routel
and route2 in Fig 1. The simulation data is plugged into the
increases to its local maximum, and Y[ determines the decay
Doppler frequency shift formula
at later times. V
This paper improves the NLOS piecewise exponential {" =-cosB
ld A
(15)
PDP model in the office, which is described in the literature
[3], and puts forward the power profile model in the Hard- In formula, V is translational speed, A is signal
NLOS environment of indoor to corridor as follows
wavelength, e
represents average arrival angle of received
signal. Results as Fig 11 and Fig 12 show that the frequency
shift of indoor and corridor of all changes in - 25Hz ~ 25 Hz.
(14)
Doppler extended BD is defined as Doppler power
spectrum broadband, and its reciprocal is the measurement of

1660
the channel coherence time To . In digital communications, VII. CONCLUSION

use the following empirical relationships In this paper, the method of time domain ray tracing is
used to research the propagation characteristics of UWB
signal in the office and outdoor corridor environment. The
(16) multipath propagation characteristics of the environment in
the office and the corresponding corridor are analyzed by
using the cluster analysis method, and the parameters of the
5
multi path model are obtained. An improved the piecewise
~
~
20 (\
exponential PDP model is proposed to predict the power
:W fading of remote distance, and the applicability is verified at
the same time. This results provide more theoretical basis for
5
0 the design ofUWB wireless communication system.

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}-10
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varying channel produced by the slow rate in the room and
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system significantly.

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