EG4233/EG7023 Radio Communications

Handout 1: Introduction and raytracing

Overview
In this module, the design of modern operational radio communication systems will
be considered. In particular, service planning and propagation tools will be
introduced for a number of systems at a range of radio frequencies. Emphasis is put
upon general aspects of radio communication, and knowledge that is transferab;e to
any system, rather than on specific technologies.

Learning Outcomes
At the end of this module, students should be able to: identify the requirements for the
planning and operation of a number of communications systems (e.g. HF broadcasts
and VHF/UHF systems including mobile telephones); outline and calculate the
limitations of such systems due to signal loss and channel distortion; demonstrate the
use of a variety of the prediction techniques and simulation software that are available
to aid the system designer.

Either EG2202 and EG3202 or EG7021

Assessment
The precise requirements for each of the following pieces of work will be introduced
separately

EG7023 EG4222
Laboratory work (inc.) 25% 43%
Presentation 5% 7%
Project work 30% 50%
Final examination 40% none

Workload
The scheduled workload is given below (15 credits=112 hours; 10 credits=75 hours)
Lectures 16 hours (plus revision lectures)
Laboratory 21 hours
Project 1 hour scheduled in lab/lecture, 36 hours required outside of lab
time
Private study 34 hours (MSc only)

Books
The following books are of relevance (all in library):
• Blake R., Wireless Communication Technology, Delmar, 2001 (621.382 BLA)
• Davies K, Ionospheric Radio, Peter Peregrinus, 1990.
• Goodman J.M., HF communications - science and technology, Van Nostrand
Reinhold, 1992 (621.384151 GOO).
• Haykin and Moher, Modern wireless communications, Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005.
• Lavergnat J. and Sylvain M., Radio wave propagation: principles and techniques
(621.38411 LAV)
• Parsons J.D., The mobile Radio propagation channel, Wiley, 2000 (621.3845).
• Pätzold M., Mobile fading channels, Wiley, 2002 (621.3845 PAT).
• Shankar P.M., Introduction to wireless systems, Wiley, 2002.
• Wesolowski K., Mobile communication systems, Wiley, 2002 (621.3845 WES).

Shankar is a particularly good introduction, but doesn’t always go into sufficient

depth.

There is a module Blackboard site with handouts, directed reading, weblinks etc.

Contents
1) Essentials of radio communications system
2) Raytracing methods
a) General introduction
b) Application to HF propagation
i) HF propagation in the ionosphere
ii) Analytical method
iii) Numerical method
3) VHF/UHF propagation
a) Propagation mechanisms in general
b) Free space propagation
c) Reflection from a planar surface
d) Diffraction (knife-edge obstacles, multiple knife-edges)
e) Vegetation loss
f) Losses in the urban environment
i) Classification of urban areas
ii) Okumura-Hata loss model
iii) COST231-Hata loss model
iv) COST231-Wolfisch-Ikegami loss model
4) Network planning
a) Cell structure and frequency reuse
b) Co-channel interference
c) Radio coverage and fading
d) Network capacity
5) Channel characteristics and their effect on modem performance
6) Longer range VHF/UHF propagation
a) Refraction
b) Ducting
c) Tropospheric scatter
7) Miscellaneous topics and revision
1) Essentials of radio communication systems
The essentials for all communication systems (no matter what the medium or
frequency of transmission) are as follows:

Transmitter (tx)
• How much power?
• Where should it be installed?
• What frequency to use?
• What type of antenna, and where should it be pointed?
• What type of modulation, data rate, and error correction (covered in Digital
Communications)?

Channel characteristics
• Absorption
• Multipath
• Propagation mode (e.g. skywave or ground wave)
• Doppler shift (considered in Digital Comms)
• Doppler and delay spread
• Fading (considered in Digital Comms and here)

Receiver (rx)
• What type of antenna, and where should it be pointed?
• Where should it be installed?

In order to design a communications system we need to be able to predict the

performance (e.g. signal-to-noise ratio, bit error rate etc.) or measure it in real time. In
this module we will concentrate on predicting the performance (usually through an
estimation of the loss)

2) Raytracing methods
a) General introduction

With electromagnetic waves, the ray represents the direction in which the energy is
propagating. By calculating the ray path (either analytically or, more commonly,
numerically) the flow of the wave energy can be determined.
Since each ray carries a fixed amount of energy, the ray density (i.e. how closely rays
are separated) gives us the energy density.

Raytracing techniques are used in many fields: seismology, acoustics rendering of

computer graphics etc. Within the field of communications, raytracing has been
applied to a number of problems, e.g.

• transionospheric propagation (ground to satellite)

• VHF/UHF propagation in the urban environment
• Optical signals
• HF propagation through the ionosphere
N.B. Raytracing has its limitations. Rays are not real physical entities, but a
convenient fiction. They can be used to represent situations that are within the realm
of geometrical optics. They cannot be used for certain situations where the
wavelength is similar to or larger than the objects being studied. E.g electromagnetic
compatibility (EMC) of electronics, antenna design.

In general, the mathematics is quite complicated consisting of (in three dimensions) 6

differential equations for the positions (r, θ, φ) and wavevectors (kr, kθ, kφ). These
equations are integrated along the path of the ray.

The essential inputs to a ray tracing program are:

1. The refractive index as a function of position

a. For the ionosphere you would need the plasma frequency, fp (which
depends on season, time-of-day etc)
b. For terrestrial VHF/UHF signals, you would need atmospheric
pressure and temperature, water vapour content etc.
2. The location of reflecting surfaces or other boundaries:
a. The earth
b. Buildings (the amount of reflections depends on materials used etc.)
c. Scatterers (hydrometeors, vegetation, people, furniture etc.)
d. Are the reflections specular or not?
3. System parameters
a. For the tx, azimuth and elevation (from antenna characteristics),
frequency, power (if absolute signal strength is required), and location
b. For the rx, the location (for both point-to-point and area coverage) and
antenna characteristic.
The outputs from the raytracing program might include:

1. Raw data – position of ray in three dimensions

2. Derived data – power, MUF (in ionospheric case), ideal launch angle, time of
flight (length of path, proportional to time), multipath spread, Doppler shifts
and spread (if time derivatives are included)

b) Application to HF propagation

i) This was investigated in EG3055/EG7021 Radio Systems by using the VOACAP

prediction program. The salient points are that:
• HF (i.e. 3–30MHz) signals can reflect from the ionosphere.
• The properties of the ionosphere (in particular the plasma frequency) vary with
season, sunspot number, geographical location, and time of day. Generally, the
plasma frequency is higher during the day than at night, so the frequency used to
communicate over long distances is not fixed.
• In principle, communication between any two points on the globe can be achieved
(although this can be difficult with very long paths).

ii) Analytical method (see Davies): For simple cases of ionospheric models and
(generally) neglecting the effect of the magnetic field the required integrals can be
performed analytically. This results in extremely fast computation times, but only a
limited number of cases can be investigated.
The equation for a parabolic layer (see Davies, pp 197) has been implemented in
matlab and the program, which is available at the Blackboard site, will be used in the
laboratory exercises. An example of the type of output, that can be obtained, is shown
below.

Raytrace, parabolic layer (h0=110km, ym=150km, and fc=20MHz), wave

frequency 20MHz

iii) Numerical method (see Proplab manual): this method is usually much slower than
the analytical methods, but is much more powerful since virtually any ionospheric
model (even measured ones) or perturbation can be used. The speed issue is becoming
less important as computing speeds continue to increase. You should note that there
are some limitations with the technique, although these often result from the
approximation of the electromagnetic wave as a ray.
The Problab pro package you will use in the laboratory sessions, is based on that
developed by Jones and Stephenson (1975), but has a reasonably straightforward user
interface and has incorporated the international reference ionosphere (IRI) as an
ionospheric model.
The first laboratory worksheet and the Proplab pro manual explain how to use the
program.

Ray tracing is an example of a physical model, as opposed to an empirical model.

Physical models try to represent reality to some degree of complexity. Empirical
models are statistically derived from previous measurements with no concern for the
mechanism by which phenomena happen.