RF Modulation
RF Modulation
Mobile RF Communication
• Cellular System
• Co-Channel Interference
• Handoff
• Path loss and Multipath fading
• Diversity
• Delay spread
• Interleaving
Mobile RF Communication
Introduction
• A mobile system is one of the which users can physically move while communicating with
one another.
• The transceiver carried by the user is called the “mobile unit” or “terminal” or “handheld
unit”
• The complexity of the wireless infrastructure often demands that the mobiles communicate
only through a fixed, relatively expensive unit called the “base station”
• Each mobile receives and transmits information from and to the base station via two RF
channels called the “forward channel ” or “downlink” and the “reverse channel ” or uplink”
respectively.
Cellular System
• With the limited available spectrum (25MHz –
900MHz) hundreds to thousands of people
communicate, how this is possible?
• Thousands of FM Radio broadcasting stations
may operate in a country in the 88MHz – 108MHz
band, this is possible because stations that are
physically far enough from each other can use the
same carrier frequency.
• This is called “frequency reuse”
• The minimum distance between two stations
that can employ equal carrier frequencies
depends on the signal power produced by
each.
• In mobile communications, the concept of
frequency reuse is implemented in a “cellular”
structure, where each cell is configured as a
hexagon and surrounded by six other cells.
• The center cell uses a frequency f1 for
communication, the six neighboring cells
cannot utilize this frequency but the cells
beyond the immediate neighbors may use.
• The mobile units in each cell are served by a
base station, and all of the base stations are
controlled by a “mobile telephone switching
office” (MTSO)
Co-Channel Interference
• An important issue in a cellular system is how
much two cells that use the same frequency
interfere with each other called co-channel
interference (CCI).
• This effect depends on the ratio of the
distance between two co-channel cells to the
cell radius and is dependent of the
transmitted power.
Handoff
• What happens when a mobile unit “roams” from
cell A to cell B?
• The power received from the base station in cell
A is insufficient to maintain communication, the
mobile must change its server to the base station
cell B.
• Since adjacent cells do not use the same group of
frequencies, the channel must also change this is
called handoff.
• This process is performed by the MTSO.
• To improve the handoff process, second
generation cellular systems allow the mobile
unit to measure the received signal level from
different base stations.
Path loss and Multipath fading
• Signals propagating through free space
experience a power loss proportional to the
square of the distance, d, form the source.
• In reality, signal travels through both a direct
path and an indirect (reflective) path.
• The actual loss profile may be proportional to
the 𝑑 2 for some distance and 𝑑 4 for another.
Diversity
• The effect of fading can be lowered by adding
redundancy to the transmission or reception
of the signal.
• Space diversity or antenna diversity
• Frequency diversity
• Time diversity
Delay Spread
• Suppose two signals in a multipath
environment experience roughly equal
attenuation but different delays.
Interleaving