Radio Wave Propagation

• The mobile radio channel experiences a lot of limitations on

the performance of wireless systems. The transmission path
can vary from line-of-sight to one severely obstructed by
buildings and foliage.
• Unlike wired channels, radio channels are extremely random
and do not offer easy analysis. The speed of motion, for
example, impacts on how the signal level fades as the mobile
terminal moves in space. This modeling is therefore based
more on statistics and requires specific measurements for an
intended communication system.
• Broadly the mechanics of electromagnetic wave propagation are
confined to reflection, diffraction, and scattering.
• Reflection, diffraction, and scattering are the three basic propagation
mechanisms for radio waves.
• Received power (or its reciprocal, path loss) is generally the most
important parameter predicted by large-scale propagation models
and is based on these three phenomena.
Reflection
• This occurs when electromagnetic waves bounce off objects whose
dimensions are large compared with the wavelength of the
propagating wave.
• They usually occur from the surface of the earth and off buildings and
walls.
• A radio wave, when propagating in one medium, impinges on another
medium with different electrical properties and is partially
transmitted and reflected
• The plane wave is incident on a perfect dielectric, part of the energy is
transmitted into the second medium and part is reflected back into
the first medium without any loss of energy in absorption.
• If the second medium is a perfect conductor then all of the incident
energy is reflected back into the first medium without loss of energy.
• The electric field intensity of the reflected and transmitted waves may
be related to the incident wave in the medium of origin through the
Fresnel reflection coefficient.
• This reflection coefficient is a function of the material properties and
generally depends on the wave polarization, angle of incidence, and
frequency of the propagating wave.
Diffraction
• Diffraction allows radio signals to propagate around the curved
surface of the earth, beyond the horizon, and behind obstructions.
• The received field strength decreases rapidly as a receiver moves
deeper into the obstructed (shadowed) region and is usually of
enough intensity so as to produce a discernable signal.
• The phenomenon of diffraction can be explained by the Huygens
principle, which states that all points on a wavefront can be
considered as point sources for the production of secondary wavelets
and that these secondary wavelets combine to produce a new
wavefront in the direction of propagation
• Diffraction is caused by the propagation of secondary wavelets into a
shadowed region. The field strength of a diffracted wave in the
shadowed region is the vector sum of the electric field components of
all the secondary wavelets in the space around the obstacle.
Scattering
• The actual received signal in a mobile radio environment is often
stronger than what is predicted by reflection and diffraction models
alone.
• This occurs because when a radio wave impinges on a rough surface,
the reflected energy is spread out (diffused) in all directions due to
scattering. Objects such as lampposts and trees tend to scatter energy
in all directions, thereby providing additional radio energy at the
receiver.
• Sometimes reflection, diffraction and scattering are collectively
referred to as scattering.
• Cellular systems usually operate in urban areas, where there is no
direct line of-sight path between the transmitter and receiver and
where high-rise buildings cause severe diffraction loss.
• Multiple reflections from various objects cause the electromagnetic
waves to travel along different paths of varying lengths.
• The interaction between these waves causes multipath fading at a
given location, because their phases are such that sometimes they
add and sometimes they subtract (fade).
• The strengths of these waves slowly reduce with distance from the
transmitter.
• Propagation models based on average-received signal strength at a
given distance from the transmitter are useful to estimate a radio
coverage area and are called large-scale propagation models or
macroscopic fading models.
• They are characterized by a large separation—usually a few
kilometers—between the transmitter and receiver. On the other
hand, propagation models that characterize the rapid fluctuations of
the received signal strength over very short distances (a few
wavelengths) or short time durations (on the order of seconds) are
called small scale fading models or microscopic fading models.
• The latter gives rise to rapid fluctuations as the mobile moves over
short distances and the received power sometimes varies as much as
30 to 40 dB when the receiver moves only a fraction of a wavelength.
Large-scale fading is manifest when the mobile moves over larger
distances, causing the local average signal level to gradually decrease.
It is this local average signal level that is predicted by large-scale
propagation models.
• Typically, the local average-received power is measured by averaging
signal measurements over a measurement track of 5 lamda to 40
lamda. For cellular frequencies in the 1-to 2-GHz band, this works out
to movements of 1 to 10m
• Small-scale fading movements are rapid fluctuations, whereas large-scale
fading movements are much slower average changes in signal strength
• The statistical distribution of this mean is influenced by parameters like
frequency, antenna heights, environments and so on.
• However, it has been observed that the received power averaged over
microscopic fading approaches a normal distribution when plotted on a
logarithmic scale (i.e., in decibels) and is called log-normal distribution

• Where x is in decibels and is a random variable representing the long-

term signal power level fluctuation
• the mean and standard deviation of x expressed in decibels
Large-Scale Fading or Macroscopic
Fading
Free space Propagation Model
• If there is a clear unobstructed line-of-sight path between the
transmitter and receiver, then we resort to the free-space
propagation model.
• Satellite communication systems and microwave line-of-sight radio
links undergo free-space propagation. In this model, the power is
presumed to decay with distance from the transmitter according to
some power law, usually as square of the distance from the
transmitter
• The free-space power received by an antenna at a distance d from the
transmitter is given by
• the received power falls off as the square of the separation distance
d. This implies that the received power decays with distance at a rate
of 20 dB/decade.
• isotropic radiator as an ideal antenna that radiates power with unit
gain uniformly in all directions and is often used as a reference
antenna gain in wireless systems. The effective isotropic radiated
power (EIRP) is defined as
EIRP = Pt Gt
• The path loss, which is the amount of attenuation suffered by the
signal in dBs, is defined as the difference (in dB) between the
transmitted power and the received power and is given by

• It is important to note that the free-space model is only applicable in

the so-called far-field region of the transmitting antenna or in the
Fraunhofer region and is defined as

• where D is the largest physical linear dimension of the antenna

• the free space power equation does not hold for d = 0.
• Hence, largescale propagation models use a close-in
distance, d0 , as a known received power reference point.
• The received power at any distance d > d0 may then be
related to Pr and d0 .
• The value Pr (d0) predicted from free space power equation
by extrapolation or may be measured in the radio
environment by taking the average received power at many
points located at a close-in radial distance d0 from the
transmitter.
• The reference distance must be so chosen that it lies in the far-field
(i.e., d0 ≥ df ) and d0 is chosen to be smaller than any practical
distance used in the mobile communication system.
• Thus from free space power equation the received power in free
space at a distance greater than d0 is given by
Outdoor Propagation Models
Free-space propagation is rarely encountered in real-life
situations. In reality, we need to take into account the terrain
profile in a particular area for estimating path loss.
The terrain may vary from a simple curved earth profile to a
highly mountainous profile. The presence of trees, buildings,
and other obstacles must be taken into account.
• A number of propagation models are available to predict
path loss over irregular terrain.
• These models differ in their ability to predict signal strength
at a particular receiving point or in a specific local area
(called a sector) because their approach is different and their
results vary in terms of accuracy and complexity.
• These models are based on iterative experiments conducted
over a period of time by measuring data in a specific area.
Okumura Model
• This is a widely used model for signal prediction in an urban
area.
• It is applicable for frequencies in the range of 150 to 1,920 MHz
and can be extrapolated up to 3 GHz and distances of 1 to 100
Km.
• It can be used for base station antenna heights ranging from 30
to 1,000m
• Okumura developed a set of curves giving the median
attenuation relative to free space (Amu ) in an urban area over a
quasi-smooth terrain with a base station effective antenna
height (hte ) of 200m and a mobile antenna height (hre ) of 3m.
• These curves were developed from extensive measurements
using vertical omni-directional antennas at both base and
mobile and are plotted as a function of frequency in the
range 100 to 1,920 MHz and as a function of distance from
the base station in the range of 1 to 100 Km.
• To use these curves, we first determine the free-space path
loss between the points of interest and then the value of
Amu ( f, d) (as read from the curves) is added to it along with
correction factors to account for the type of terrain.
• The model is expressed as
Hata Model
• The Hata model is an empirical formulation of the graphical path loss
data provided by Okumura and is valid from 150 to 1,500 MHz.
• Hata presented the loss as a standard formula and supplied correction
equations for application to other situations. The standard formula for
median path loss in urban areas is given by
• To obtain the path loss in a suburban area, the standard Hata formula
is modified as
Small-Scale Fading
• Small-scale fading or simply fading is used to describe the rapid
fluctuations of the amplitude, phases, or multipath delays of a radio
signal over a short period of time or travel distance, so that large-
scale path loss effects may be ignored.
• Fading is caused by a number of signals (two or more) arriving at the
reception point through different paths, giving rise to constructive
(strengthening) vectorial summing of the signal or destructive
(weakening) vectorial subtraction of the signals, depending on their
phase and amplitude values.
• These different signals other than the main signal are called multipath
waves.
• Multipath in a radio channel creates small-scale fading effects. These
effects are commonly characterized as causing:
1. Rapid changes in signal strength over a small travel distance or time
interval.
2. Random frequency modulation due to varying Doppler shifts on
different multipaths.
3. Time dispersion (echoes) caused by multipath propagation delays.
• Even when a line-of-sight exists, multipath still occurs due to
reflections from the ground or surrounding structures.
• Assume that there is no moving object in the channel. In such a case,
fading is purely a spatial phenomenon.
• The signals add or subtract, creating standing waves in the area where
the mobile is located.
• In such a case, as the mobile moves, it encounters temporal fading as
it moves through the multipath field.
• In a more serious case, the mobile may stop at a particular point at
which the received signal is in deep fade.
• Maintaining good communication in that case becomes very difficult
Microscopic Fading
• Microscopic fading refers to the rapid fluctuations of the
received signal in space, time, and frequency and is caused
by the signal scattering off objects between the transmitter
and receiver.
• Since this fading is a superposition of a large number of
independent scattered components, then by the central limit
theorem, the components of the received signal can be
assumed to be independent zero mean Gaussian processes.
• The envelope of the received signal is consequently Rayleigh
distributed and is given by
• If there is a direct LOS path between the transmitter and receiver, the
signal envelope is no longer Rayleigh and the distribution of the signal is
Ricean.
• The Ricean distribution is often defined in terms of the Ricean factor, K,
which is the ratio of the power in the mean component of the channel to
the power in the scattered component.
• The Ricean PDF of the envelope is given by
• In the absence of a direct path, K = 0 and the Ricean PDF reduces to
Rayleigh PDF, since I0 (0) = 1.
• the combined effects of path loss and macroscopic and microscopic fading
on received power in a wireless channel is shown below

• Figure shows that the mean propagation loss increases monotonically with
range. Local deviations from this mean occur due to macroscopic and
microscopic fading.
• There are three types of microscopic fading

1. Doppler spread-time selective fading;

2. Delay spread-frequency selective fading;
3. Angle spread-space selective fading.
Doppler Spread-Time Selective
Fading
• Time varying fading due to the motion of a scatterer or the motion of
a transmitter or receiver or both results in Doppler spread. The term
spread is used to denote the fact that a pure tone frequency fc in
hertz spreads across a finite bandwidth ( fc ± fmax ).
• There is a direct relationship between the autocorrelation function of
a signal and its spectrum and is defined by the Wiener-Khinchin
equations.
• The Fourier transform of the time autocorrelation of the channel
response to a continuous wave (CW) tone is defined as Doppler
power spectrum c Do ( f ) with fc − fmax ≤ f ≤ f + fmax .
Typical Doppler power spectrum.
• The Doppler power spectrum has a classical U-shaped form and is
approximated by Jakes model. The Doppler shift of the received signal
denoted by fd is given by

• where v is the velocity of the moving object (or vehicle speed, if we

are talking about static scatterers and a moving vehicle), u is the
relative angle between the moving object and the point of reception
of the Doppler signal, and c is the speed of light.
• Obviously, the maximum Doppler will be received at a relative angle
of 0°
• where Tc is defined as the time lag for which the signal
autocorrelation coefficient reduces to 0.7. It serves as a measure of
how fast the channel changes in time, implying that the larger the
coherence time, the slower the channel fluctuation.
• The Doppler spectrum shows pertains to a mobile receiver moving at
constant speed (e.g., in a car). However, in a fixed wireless channel,
the receiver is static but there is movement in the environment (e.g.,
trees and foliage moving in a random manner due to wind). In such
cases, the Doppler spectrum is shown as
• the left-hand graph pertains to a low Doppler spread and the right-
hand one pertains to a higher Doppler spread. The curves level off at
high Doppler shifts due to the prevailing noise levels.
• If there is moving traffic around the mobile, Doppler components can
occur at much higher frequencies, but the shape of the Doppler
spectra will be similar.
 Delay Spread-Frequency Selective
Fading
• The small-scale variations of a mobile radio signal can be directly related
to the impulse response of the mobile radio channel.
• This stems from the fact that a mobile radio channel may be modeled as a
linear filter with a time varying impulse response, where the time
variation is due to receiver motion in space.
• The filtering nature of the channel is caused by the summation of
amplitudes and delays of the multiple arriving waves at any instant of
time.
• Therefore, the impulse response is a useful characterization of the
channel because it can be used to predict and compare the performance
of many different mobile communication systems and transmission
bandwidths for a particular channel condition
• To compare different multipath channels and develop some general
design guidelines for wireless systems, certain parameters were
decided on as benchmarks to quantify the multipath channel.
• These parameters are the mean excess delay, RMS delay spread, and
excess delay spread and they can be determined from the power
delay profile.
• Mean excess delay: The mean excess delay is the first moment of the
power delay profile and is defined as
• RMS delay spread: The RMS delay spread is the square root of the
second central moment of the power delay profile and is defined as
Above Equations do not rely on the absolute power level of but only
on the relative amplitudes of the multipath components within .
Typical values of RMS delay spread are on the order of microseconds in
outdoor mobile radio channels and on the order of nanoseconds in
indoor radio channels.
Example of an indoor power delay profile
• Delay spread causes frequency selective fading as the channel acts
like a tapped delay line filter. Frequency selective fading can be
characterized in terms of coherence bandwidth, Bc , which is the
frequency lag for which the channel’s autocorrelation function
reduces to 0.7.
• coherence bandwidth is defined as
• When the coherence bandwidth is comparable with or less than the
signal bandwidth, the channel is said to be frequency selective.
• Otherwise it is frequency flat or non-selective. A ‘‘flat’’ channel
passes all spectral components with approximately equal gain and
linear phase.
• It is not possible to provide an exact relationship between coherence
bandwidth and RMS delay spread, as it is a function of specific
channel impulse response and applied signals.
• We need to resort to spectral analysis to determine the exact impact
that time varying multipath has on a transmitted signal.
• Hence, accurate multipath modeling is essential.
Angle Spread-Space Selective
Fading
• Angle spread at the receiver refers to the angle of arrival (AOA) of the
multipath components at the receive antenna. Similarly, the angle of
departure (AOD) from the transmitter of the multipath that reaches
the receiver is called the angle spread at the transmitter
• We denote AOA by u and the rest of the analysis is as was done for
delay spread, the only difference being that instead of t we substitute
u. The terminology now becomes RMS angle spread and is given by
• Where

• The RMS angle spread is measured similar to the RMS delay spread.
These angles are measured relative to the first detectable signal
arriving at the receiver at
• do not rely on the absolute power level of P(ϴ), but only on the
relative amplitudes of the multipath components within P(ϴ ).
• Once again, instead of coherence bandwidth in the delay case, we
have coherent distance in this case.
• Angle spread causes space selective fading, which means that signal
amplitude depends on the spatial location of the antenna.
• Space selective fading is characterized by coherent distance, Dc ,
which is the spatial separation for which the autocorrelation
coefficient of the spatial fading drops to 0.7.
• It is inversely proportional to angle spread and is given by
Microscopic Fading Measurements
• with the importance of channel measurements in wireless
communications and the need to determine the microscopic fading
parameters in a radio channel
• three important channel sounding techniques are used namely
1. Direct pulse measurements.
2. Spread-spectrum sliding correlator measurements.
3. Swept frequency measurements.
Direct Pulse Measurements
• This technique enables to determine the power delay profile of the
channel
• Basically we generate a pulse train of narrowband pulses of width Tp .
• These pulses are then received by a receiver that has a bandpass
filter at its input of bandwidth BW = 2/Tp .
• The signal is then amplified, envelope detected, and given to a
storage oscilloscope.
• This gives an immediate measurement of the square of the channel
impulse response (envelope detection) convolved with the probing
pulse.
• If the oscilloscope is set on averaging mode, we obtain the average
power delay profile of the channel.
• The advantage here is that the system is not complex.
• The minimum resolvable delay between multipath components is
equal to the probing pulse width Tp .
• Due to the wideband input filter, the system is subject to a lot on noise.
• Also, the pulse system relies on the ability to trigger the oscilloscope
on the first arriving signal.
• If this signal is in deep fade, the system may not trigger properly. In
addition, the phase of the multipath components is lost due to the
envelope detector.
• This problem can be solved by using a coherent detector.
Spread-Spectrum Sliding Correlator
Channel Sounding
• In the previous effort, if the first trigger is not available due to deep
fades, the system fails.
• The problem is further compounded by the fact that the input filter,
being wideband, lets noise into the system.
• To counter this, the spread-spectrum system was developed.
• The idea here is to ‘‘spread’’ the carrier signal over a wide bandwidth
by mixing it with a binary pseudonoise (PN) sequence having chip
duration Tc and a chip-rate Rc equal to 1/Tc Hz.
• The power spectrum envelope of the transmitted signal is given by
• and the null-to-null radio frequency (RF) bandwidth is

• The signal is then transmitted and at the receiver the reverse

operation takes place
• The transmitted PN sequence is at a slightly higher rate than the PN
sequence at the receiver. This causes the window to ‘‘slide’’ at the
receiver at the difference frequency given by
• Mixing the chip sequence in this fashion gives rise to a ‘‘sliding
correlator.’’
• Therefore, as the delayed multipaths arrive one after the other, they are
reflected as peaks on the power delay profile.
• The PN sequences are selected to have good autocorrelation and cross-
correlation properties.
• This implies that ‘‘own’’ sequence (the true signal) will give rise to a
maximum peak signal and the rest will be treated as ‘‘noise’’ and be
spread throughout the bandwidth.
• In this way the narrowband filter that follows the correlator can reject
almost the entire incoming signal power.
• Hence, the wideband input filter problem, as was noted in the
previous method, is absent. This type of processing results in
processing gain and is given by
• Since the incoming spread-spectrum signal is mixed with a receiver
PN sequence that is slower than the transmitter PN sequence, the
signal is essentially down converted to a low-frequency narrowband
signal.
• Hence, the relative rates of the two codes slipping past each other is
the rate of information transferred to the oscilloscope. This
narrowband signal allows narrowband processing, eliminating much
of the passband noise and interference.
• The processing gain is then realized using a narrowband filter
• The equivalent time measurements refer to the relative times of
multipath components as they are displayed on the oscilloscope. The
observed time scale on the oscilloscope using a sliding correlator is
related to the actual propagation time scale by

• This effect is due to the relative rate of information transfer to the

sliding correlator and must be kept in mind when measuring.
• This effect is known as time dilation.
• The length of the PN sequence must be greater than the longest
multipath propagation delay; otherwise, these delays will be missed
out.
The advantages of this system are:
• Passband noise is rejected.
• Transmitter and receiver synchronization problem is eliminated by the
sliding correlator.
• Sensitivity is adjustable by changing the sliding factor and the
postcorrelator filter bandwidth.
• Required transmitter powers can be considerably lower than
comparable direct pulse systems due to the inherent ‘‘processing gain’’
of the spreadspectrum systems.
The disadvantages are:
• The measurements are not made in real time, unlike in direct pulse
systems, because they are compiled as the PN codes slide past each
other.
• Time taken to measure the channel is very high.
• Phase measurement is not possible because the detector is
noncoherent. Even if we use a coherent detector, the sweep time of a
spread-spectrum signal induces delay such that the phases of individual
multipath components with different time delays would be measured
at substantially different times, during which the channel might change.
Frequency Domain Channel
Sounding

Frequency domain channel impulse response measurement system.

• This method exploits the dual relationship between time domain and
frequency domain.
• In this case we measure the channel in the frequency domain and
then convert it into time domain impulse response by taking its
inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT).
• A vector network analyzer controls a swept frequency synthesizer.
• An S-parameter test set is used to monitor the frequency response of
the channel
• The sweeper scans a particular frequency band, centered on the
carrier, by stepping through discrete frequencies.
• The number and spacing of the frequency step impacts the time
resolution of the impulse response measurement.
• For each frequency step, the S-parameter test set transmits a known
signal level at port 1 and monitors the received signal at port 2.
• These signals allow the analyzer to measure the complex response,
S21 (w), of the channel over the measured frequency range.
• The S21 (w) measure is the measure of the signal flow from
transmitter antenna to receiver antenna
• This technique works well and indirectly provides amplitude and
phase information in the time domain.
• However, it requires careful calibration and hard-wired
synchronization between the transmitter and receiver, making it
suitable only for indoor channel measurements.
• This system is also nonreal-time. Hence, it is not suitable for time-
varying channels unless the sweep times are fast enough.
Antenna Diversity
• Diversity Combining Methods
• There are three principal methods—
• selection combining,
• maximal ratio combining, and
• equal gain combining.
 Selection Combining:

• This is the simplest combining method.

• Consider a MR receiver system.
• In this method, the signal coming into each of the MR antennas that has
the highest instantaneous SNR at every symbol interval are selected.
• This makes the output of the combiner equal to that of the best incoming
signal.
• The advantage here is that this method does not require any additional
RF receiver chain.
• In other words, all receive antennas share a single RF receiver chain. This
keeps the cost down.
• In practice the strongest signals are selected because it is difficult to
measure SNR alone.
Maximal Ratio Combining
• In maximal ratio combining (MRC), the signals from all of the MR
branches are weighted according to their individual SNRs and then
summed.
• Here the individual signals need to be brought into phase alignment
before summing. This implies individual RF receiver tracts.
• If the signals are ri from each branch, and each branch has a gain Gi ,
then
Error rate performance for MRC in Rayleigh fading
Equal Gain Combining
• It is the same as MRC but with equal weighting for all branches.
Hence, in this sense it is suboptimal.
• The performance is marginally inferior to MRC, but the complexities
of implementation are much less.