WIRELESS COMMUNICATION

SYSTEM

Mobile Radio Propagation –

Small Scale Fading and Multipath

Dr Razali Ngah
WCC FKE UTM
 Small Scale Fading

Fading is rapid fluctuations of the amplitude of a radio signal over a
short period of time or travel distance.

Fading is caused by interference between two or more versions of
transmitted signal, which arrives at the receiver at slightly different
times.

These multipath waves combine at the receiver antenna to give a
resultant signal, which can vary in delay, in amplitude and phase.

Some multipaths cancel each other out, some add up together
constructively, some partially cancel each other, etc.

Three major effects;

Rapid changes in signal strength over a small distance or time
interval.

Random frequency modulation due to varying Doppler shift on
different multipath signals.

Time dispersion (echoes) caused by multipath propagation delay.
Fading
 Factors Influencing Small Signal
Fading

Multipath propagations

multiple waves arriving at random delay, angle and amplitudes.

Speed of mobile (Doppler shift):

Frequency shift caused by the motion of MS.

Received frequency = f ± fd

+ If mobile is moving toward base station

- If moving away from base station.

Speed of surrounding objects.

This is considered only if the speed of the surrounding objects is
greater than the mobile.

Transmission bandwidth of signal and bandwidth of channel.

Signal distorted if signal bandwidth > “bandwidth” of multipath
channel.
 Doppler Shift

Doppler frequency shift due to the movement of the mobile unit

v cos θ
fd =
λ
fd = doppler frequency shift
v = speed of mobile
θ = angle of the incoming wave
λ= wavelength of the transmitted
frequency

Positive Doppler frequency shift when mobile moving towards RBS

Negative Doppler frequency shift when mobile move away from RBS
Example 3.1
If the transmitted signal has carrier frequency fc=1850 MHz,
receiver moves at speed v=100 km/h, calculate the received
carrier frequency if the mobile is moving (a) directly toward the
transmitter, (b) directly away from the transmitter, and (c) in a
direction which is perpendicular to the direction of arrival of the
transmitted signal.
 Multipath Channels

The power delay profile gives the

Discrete power delay profile
average power received as a function of time
 Multipath Channels Model

The multipath channel impluse response

N −1
hb (τ ) = ∑ ai e jθi δ (τ − τ i )
i =0

ai : amplitude of i th propagation path

θi : phase shift of i th propagation path
τ i : multipath delay (excess delay) of i th propagation path
N : total number of paths

Applications of channel models

System simulation

Study limits/distortions to communication signals, design filters to
increase capacity and coverage
 Channel Parameters: Multipath
RMS Delay Spread:

Describes the dispersion in time when a pulse is transmitted.

σ τ = τ 2 − (τ ) 2 = rms delay spread

 ∑ ak2τ k  ∑ pkτ k
where τ =  k  = k = mean excess delay
 ∑ a2  ∑k pk
 k k 
 ∑ ak2τ k2  ∑ pkτ k2
τ 2 =  k 2  = k = mean square delay
 k∑ ak
 ∑k
pk
 …Channel Parameters: Multipath
Coherent bandwidth, Bc:

A statistical measure of the range of frequencies over which the

channels can be considered “flat” (equal gain & linear phase)

The bandwidth over which channel frequency response has large
correlations

Two frequencies separated greater than Bc have different channel

response
1
i) Bc ≈ , frequency correlation function above 0.9
Bcα
1 50σ τ
στ 1
ii) Bc ≈ , frequency correlation function above 0.5
5σ τ

RMS Delay spread and coherence bandwidth Bc: Describe the time
dispersion nature of the channel in a small scale region
 Example 3.2
Pr(τ)

0 dB

-10 dB

-20 dB

-30 dB τ
0 1 2 (µs)

Determine the RMS delay spread

Example 3.3
Pr(τ)

0 dB

-10 dB

-20 dB

-30 dB τ
0 1 2 5 (µs)

Calculate:
- Mean excess delay
- RMS delay spread
- Coherence bandwidth (freq correlation function > 0.5)
Measured power delay profiles

The signals from

close by reflectors
Signal Strength

The signals from

intermediate reflectors

The signals from

far away reflectors

Delay
Example of measured outdoor power delay profile
Typical RMS delay spreads
 Channel Parameters: Doppler Shift
Doppler spread, BD:

spectral broadening due to Doppler shift (Doppler frequency shift : fd =
(v / λ) cos θ)
v
BD = f m , where f m = max f d =
λ

The range of frequencies over which the received Doppler spectrum is
non-zero.

Doppler spectrum: the received spectrum of a single tone fc is (fc-fd,
fc+fd) for Doppler shift fd.

If the signal bandwidth is much greater than BD the effect of Doppler
spread is negligible at the receiver
 …Channel Parameters: Doppler Shift

Coherence time, Tc:

Tc is a measure of the minimum time required for the magnitude
change of the channel to become decorrelated from its previous value.

time duration over which spectral broadening is invariant (stationary of

h(t))
Tc = 0.423 / fm = 0.423 / BD

Time duration over which two received signals have a strong potential

for amplitude correlation.

Quantifies the similarity of the channel response at different time.

Coherence time definition implies that two signals arriving with a time

separation greater than Tc are affected differently by the channel.

 Types of Small Scale Fading

Fading: depends on both signal and channel

Signal parameters:

symbol interval Ts, bandwidth Bs (symbol rate Rs)

Channel parameters:

rms delay spread στ, coherence bandwidth Bc

Doppler spread BD, coherence time Tc

Two independent mechanisms: Time Dispersion (due to multipath delays
spread), and Doppler Shift (due to motion of mobile of channel)

Doppler Shift
Multipath time delay

Slow fading Fast

Flat fading Frequency Fading
Selective
Fading
 Fading due to Multipath Time Delay
Spread
Flat fading:
Channel has constant gain and linear phase response.
Spectral characteristics of the transmitted signal are maintained at
receiver.
Bs << Bc Ts >> στ
All frequency components of the signal will experience the same
magnitude of fading

Frequency selective fading:

Channel has different gains within the bandwidth of the signal.
Bs > Bc Ts < 10 στ
Received signal includes multiple versions of transmitted waveform so
received signal is distorted.
Different frequency components of the signal experience decorrelated
fading.
Flat Fading

Flat fading illustration:

time & frequency response of flat fading channel
…Frequency-Selective Fading

Frequency selective fading illustration

Time and frequency response of a frequency selective fading

channel
 Fading due to Doppler Shift
Fast Fading:

The channel impulse response changes rapidly within the symbol duration.

This causes frequency dispersion due to Doppler spreading, which leads to
signal distortion.

Signal distortion increases with increasing Doppler spread relative to the
bandwidth of the transmitted signal.
Ts > Tc Bs < BD
Fast fading only occurs for very low data rates
Slow Fading:

The channel impulse response changes at a rate much slower than the
transmitted signal s(t).

Doppler spread of the channel is much less than the bandwidth of the
baseband signal
Ts << Tc Bs >> BD
Velocity of mobile (or velocity of objects in channel) and base band
signaling determines slow fading or fast fading.
 Small scale fading
BS
Flat fading BC
Multi path time delay
BS
Frequency selective fading BC

fading
TS
Fast fading TC
Doppler spread

TS
Slow fading
TC
 Fading Models

Describe how the receive signal amplitude changes with the time.

It is a statistical characterization of the multipath fading.

Two fading models:

Rayleigh Fading

Describes the received signal envelope distribution for channels,

where all the components are non-LOS.

Ricean Fading

Describes the receive signal envelope distribution for channels

where one of the multipath components is LOS component.

Type of Statistics: PDF
Type of Statistics: CDF
 Rayleigh Distribution
p(r)

Received signal
envelope voltage
(volts)
Pdf (Probability density function):
p(r) = (r/σ2) exp{ –(r2/2σ2) (0 ≤ r ≤ ∞)
=0 r<0
σ → rms value of received voltage before envelope detection.
 Ricean Distribution

p(r)

A – the peak amplitude of the dominant signal

The Ricean factor, K is defined as the ratio between the deterministic

signal power and the variance of the multipath.

K = A2/(2σ2)
…Ricean Distributions
Theoretical Rayleigh CDF
 Example 1

A Cellular radio system has RBS antenna gain of 8 dB and

mobile antenna gain of 2 dB. The noise level of the mobile
station is – 100 dBm. The RBS radiated power is 10 W and
operate at 1800 MHz. The distance between RBS and the
MS is 2 km. How many second per hour is the received
signal gone below noise level MS? Received signal at the
MS is assumed to be Rayleigh distribution and the medium
loss around the MS is 25 dB.