lOMoARcPSD|24454659
WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS BEC703
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
Wireless Communication Systems-BEC703
Module-1
Principles of Wireless Communications: The Wireless Communication Environment, Modelling
of wireless systems, System model for narrowband Signals, Rayleigh fading Wireless Channel.
The Wireless Channel: Basics of Wireless Channel Modelling, Average Delay Spread in
Outdoor Cellular Channels, Coherence bandwidth, Relation between ISI and Coherence
Bandwidth, Doppler fading, Doppler Impact on a wireless Channel, Coherence Time.
[Text1: 3.1 to 3.4, 4.1 to 4.7]
1. Aditya K Jagannatham, “Principles of Modern Wireless Communication systems, Theory
and Practice ”, Mc Graw Hill Education (India) Private Limited, 2017, ISBN 978-81- 265-4231-4
THE WIRELESS COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT
In conventional wireline communication systems, there is a single signal-propagation
path between the transmitter and the receiver, which is constrained by the
propagation medium such as a coaxial cable or a twisted pair.
However, in wireless systems, the signal can reach the receiver via direct, reflected,
and scattered paths as shown in below fig.
As a result, at the receiver, there is a superposition of multiple copies of the
transmitted signal. These signal copies experience different attenuations, delays, and
phase shifts arising from the varied propagation distances and properties of the
scattering media.
Hence, at the wireless receiver , there is interference of signals received from these
multiple propagation paths, which is termed multipath interference.
The multipath interference, in turn, results in an amplification or attenuation of the
net received signal power observed at the receiver, and this variation in the received
signal strength arising from the multipath propagation phenomenon is termed
multipath fading or simply fading.
Strong destructive interference at the receiver is referred to as a deep fade, and such
a condition may result in temporary failure of communication due to a severe drop in
the SNR at the receiver.
This phenomenon of fading is the critical difference between the wireline and
wireless communication systems, which causes a radical paradigm shift in the nature
of wireless communications, necessitating the development of a fundamentally novel
approach to design wireless systems.
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
One of the main objectives, therefore, in wireless-system design, is to develop
schemes to combat fading and ensure reliability of signal reception in wireless
communication systems.
MODELLING OF WIRELESS SYSTEMS
By considering the transmitted passband wireless signal s(t), which is transmitted
across a wireless channel. Such a passband signal can be described analytically as,
Where sb(t) - the complex baseband representation of the transmitted signal
fc -carrier frequency employed for transmission
we need an analytical model for the wireless communication channel, so we will
assume initially that the wireless channel is time invariant.
Let us consider a channel with L multipath components. Observe that each path of
the wireless channel basically has two characteristic properties.
Firstly, it delays the signal because of the propagation distance.
Secondly, there is an attenuation of the signal arising because of the scattering effect.
Let the signal attenuation and delay of the ith channel be denoted by the quantities
ai, τi respectively.
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
The impulse response of an LTI system which attenuates a signal by ai and delays it by
τi is given as
Further, observe that the wireless channel represents a linear input–output system,
since the signal observed at the receiver is the sum of the different multipath signal
copies impinging on the receive antenna.
Therefore, a typical Channel Impulse Response (CIR) of a multipath-scattering based
wireless channel is given by the sum of the above impulse responses corresponding
to the individual model,
The above impulse response is also termed the tapped delay-line model.
Each such ith path is characterized by two parameters, which are,
o The attenuation factor ai
o The path delay τi
Since the above wireless is a linear time-invariant (LTI) system, the received signal y(t)
can be expressed as the convolution of the transmitted signal s (t) with the CIR h (t).
Therefore, the received wireless signal y (t) is given as
By inserting the expression for the tapped delay-line channel
Further, this expression for the received signal can be written in terms of the
transmitted baseband signal sb (t) by substituting the relation between s(t) and sb (t)
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
From the above expression, it can readily be seen that y b (t), the complex baseband
signal equivalent of the received signal y (t), is simply given a
From the above equation ,the received baseband signal consists of multiple delayed
copies sb (t − τi) of the transmitted signal sb (t).
Each such ith signal copy arising from the ith multipath component is associated with
the following three parameters.
o The attenuation factor ai
o The path delay τi
o The phase factor e−j2πfc τi
EX: Baseband BPSK information signal
The quantity T denotes the symbol time, while T m, which is the delay between the first and
last arriving copies of the signal, is termed the delay spread.
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
SYSTEM MODEL FOR NARROWBAND SIGNALS
For a sufficiently narrowband signal sb (t), the different delayed components
sb (t − τi) are approximately equal to each other, i.e., sb (t − τi) ≈ sb (t)
Hence, for a narrowband transmit signal s b (t), the expression for the received
baseband signal yb (t) can be further simplified as
Where
is termed the complex fading channel coefficient.
Hence, the output baseband signal y b (t) is related to the input baseband signal s b (t)
by a complex attenuation factor ae jφ .
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
The signal power at the receiver critically depends on the magnitude of the overall
attenuation factor aejφ.
For instance, consider a two-component multipath channel with identical magnitude
and exactly out-of-phase components, i.e., a0 = a1 and e−j2πfc τ0 = −e−j2πfcτ1 .
In this extreme case, the received signal yb (t) = 0, resulting in 0(i.e., −∞ dB) received
signal power and the channel is in a deep fade.
“The bandwidth of the transmitted signal is usually orders of magnitude smaller
than the carrier frequency fc”.
RAYLEIGH FADING WIRELESS CHANNEL
The complex fading coefficient h can be expressed in terms of its real and imaginary
components as,
Thus, X, Y which are the real and imaginary components of the fading coefficient ae jφ
Further, a simplistic model for the statistical characterization of X, Y would be to
assume that they are Gaussian and un-correlated.
The assumption of Gaussianity is lent support by the central limit theorem, which in
simple terms states that a normalized random variable derived from the sum of a
large number of independent identically distributed random components, converges
to a Gaussian random variable.
The above assumption is valid as L → ∞, i.e., the number of multipath components is
fairly large.
Hence, X, Y are distributed as (assuming zero-mean and variance 12 ).
The joint distribution of X, Y is given by the standard multivariate Gaussian as
One can now derive the statistics of the fading coefficient ae jφ in terms of its
amplitude and phase factors a, φ. It can be seen through elementary trigonometric
properties that
x = a cos φ, y = a sin φ
The joint distribution fA,Φ (a, φ) can be derived from fX,Y (x, y) using the relation for
multivariate PDF transformation as
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
where we have used the property that x2 + y2 = a2 in the above expression.
The quantity JX,Y is termed the Jacobian of X, Y and is given by the expression
where |A| denotes the determinant of the matrix A.
Substituting the Jacobian in the expression for multivariate PDF transformation
above, the joint PDF with respect to the random variables A, Φ can be derived as
The marginal distributions fA, fΦ with respect to the amplitude and phase factor
random variables A, Φ can be readily derived from the above joint distribution as
Observe that the average power in the amplitude a of the Ralyeigh fading channel
coefficient h is given as
The term Rayleigh refers to the distribution of the amplitude factor, the Rayleigh
fading wireless channel characterizes both the amplitude factor as a Rayleigh fading
random variable and the phase factor as uniformly distributed in (−π, π).
The joint distribution fA,Φ (a, φ) is related to the marginals fA (a) , fΦ (φ) as,
implying that the random variables A, Φ are independent.
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
The fig shows a scatter plot of the real and imaginary components of 10000
randomly generated samples of the Rayleigh fading coefficient.
From the circular symmetry of the plot, it can be readily seen that the phase of the
Rayleigh coefficient is distributed uniformly in (− π, π).
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
Baseband Model of a Wireless System
The baseband digital wireless communication system model for the above Rayleigh
fading channel can be now readily derived as follows.
Let x(k), y(k) be the kth transmitted and received symbols respectively and h denote
the Rayleigh fading channel coefficient.
The baseband system model for symbol detection in this channel is given as
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
y(k) = x(k) + n(k)
THE WIRELESS CHANNEL: BASICS OF WIRELESS CHANNEL MODELLING
The impulse response of the standard multipath wireless channel can be modelled as
where each δ(t−τi) corresponds to delaying the signal by τi,
ai is the attenuation associated with the ith path.
The quantity L denotes the number of paths or multipath components. From the above
impulse response, one can define the multipath power profile of the multipath channel as
Where gi=|ai|2 is the power gain of the ith path
consider an L=4 path multipath channel
Path gains and associated delays for an L = 4 multipath channel
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
Schematic of an L=4 tap wireless channel profile
Thus, one can readily observe that the total energy corresponding to the transmitted
wireless signal is received in increments at the receiver, with apart of it arriving in
each multipath component.
For instance, power with gain g 0 is received after a delay of τ 0,while again of g1 is
received after a delay τ1, and soon, till the last path arriving at a delay of τ L−1 delivers
Power with again of gL−1.
Thus, the total power received in a multipath wireless channel occurs over a spread of time
referred to as the delay spread.
Schematic of a typical wireless channel power profile and delay spread
Observe that this property of the wireless channel is in contrast to that of a wireline channel,
in which all the power is received at a single time instant due to the presence of only a single
propagation path.
The delay spread of a wireless channel is a key parameter that characterizes the nature of
the wireless environment and is denoted by the parameter στ.
1) Maximum Delay Spread σ τ max
Consider a wireless channel with components, with the first path arriving at a delay
of τ 0 L multipath and the last signal copy arriving at τ L − 1 . The maximum delay
spread is simply defined as
or, in other words, the time interval between the arrival of the first and last signal
copies at the receiver.
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
Schematic of the wireless-propagation environment
It can be readily seen that a larger value of σ max τ naturally implies a richer scatter
environment and larger differential propagation delays between the paths.
Further, observe the key property that the delay spread does NOT depend on the
absolute delays τ 0 , τ L − 1 , but the difference τ L − 1 − τ 0 .
Thus, the distance of the mobile receiver node from the base station has no impact
on the delay spread, which leads to a larger propagation delay.
consider a scenario where there is a single propagation path, corresponding to a
large delay τ 0 for a mobile at a large distance from the base station.
Since there is only a single path in this case, the first and last components correspond
to the single component arriving at a delay of τ 0 . Hence, the corresponding
delay spread is τ 0 − τ 0 =0 .
Thus, the delay spread indeed depends critically on the presence of multipath
components and the richness of the scatter environment, which basically affects the
total number of multipath scatter-signal components arriving at the receiver.
Problem:
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
Solution:
2) RMS Delay Spread σ τ RMS
In typical wireless channels, the paths which arrive later are significantly lower in
power due to the larger propagation distances and weaker reflections .
This results in a large value of the maximum delay spread σ τ max even though several
of the later paths comprise weak scatter components with negligible power.
Thus, the maximum delay spread metric is not a reliable indicator of the true power
spread of the arriving multipath signal components in such scenarios, since it does
not weight the delays in proportion to the signal power in the multipath
components.
For this purpose, the RMS delay spread is a more realistic indicator of the spread of
the signal power in the arriving components.
We define a new quantity bias
Where gi denotes the total power corresponding to the i th path, while g0+g1+...+gL−1
denotes the total power in the multipath power profile.
Thus, the ratio bi denotes the fraction of power in the ith multipath component.
Observe now that the various bi define a power distribution for the above multipath
power profile since each bi>0 and b0+b1+...bL−1=1.
Therefore, the average delay can be computed to the mean of the above power
distribution as
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
It can be seen that the average delay is obtained by weighing each delay τ in
proportion to the fraction of the power bi.
Finally, the RMS delay spread σ τ RMS can be computed as the standard deviation of
the power distribution ,which is defined as
Thus, the RMS metric to characterize the delay spread defined above is not sensitive to
spurious multipath components of weak signal powers since it weights each delay in
proportion to its power, thereby automatically suppressing the contribution of weaker paths.
PROBLEM:
Consider the multipath power profile of a wireless channel shown in Fig. comprising
L=[Link] the RMS delay spread σ τ RMS for this wireless channel
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
It can be seen that the RMS delay spread is 0.8573μs, which is much more realistic compared
max
The maximum delay spread σ τ =5μs
3)RMS Delay Based on Average Power Profile
The average power associated with this delay can be defined as
The above quantity φ(τ)can be thought of as the average power associated with the
delay τ at various instants of time.
The former is averaging over time, while the latter represents an averaging over the
ensemble of channels.
Where f(τ) denotes the power distribution density corresponding to the delay τ ,i.e. ,f(τ)Δτ is
the fraction of power in a delay interval of Δτ around τ.The average τ can, therefore,b e
defined as
Finally, the RMS delay spread for the above power profile φ(τ) is defined as
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
Average Delay Spread in Outdoor Cellular Channels
Consider an outdoor cellular wireless communication scenario.
The cell radii of typical cells Are in the range of 1–5 km,i .e., outdoor wireless signal-
propagation distances are of the order Of a few kilometres.
Consider two paths, where the direct and scatter distances are given as d0=2km,
d0=3km respectively. Hence, the propogation delays τ0,τ1 are given as
o
The above calculation is not an exact calculation of the outdoor delay spread.
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
However, it demonstrates that in typical outdoor cellular scenarios, where the
distances and signal-propagation paths are of the orders of kilometres, the delay
spreads are of the order of 1–3 μ s .
This value is of great importance in the design and analysis of practical wireless-
communication systems.
Also, similarly, corresponding to indoor distances of around 10 m, typical indoor
delay spreads are of the order of 10–50 ns.
We wish to again emphasize that these are not exact values and rather the
approximate order of these quantities, which are helpful to know towards practical
design of 3G/4G wireless-communication systems.
Typical delay spread in outdoor cellular channels
Coherence Bandwidth in Wireless Communications
Let us define the frequency response H(f) of the wireless channel as
Two fundamental quantities, i.e., the delay spread and coherence bandwidth .
considering a simple case corresponding to σ τ =0, the delay spread is zero, the
wireless channel comprises a single propagation path.
Hence, the delay profile is given as
The corresponding frequency response H(f) = 0 is given as
Thus, the frequency response is the constant 1 and | H(f) | = 1 .
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
As the delay spread σ τ increases , the time spread of this response increases, leading
to a decrease in the bandwidth of the response H(f).
Finally, as the time spread of the response becomes ∞.The channel filter becomes
an impulse δ (f) and the bandwidth of the channel filter reduces to 0.
The coherence bandwidth response H(f) B c is then defined as the bandwidth of the ,
i.e., the frequency band over which the response H(f) is flat.
Consider any signal transform X(f) x(t) transmitted over the wireless channel, with
corresponding Fourier .
It is well known from the theory of linear signals and systems that the output
response Y(f )of the output signal y(t) is given as
Linear input-output system model for the wireless channel
The output Y(f)=H(f)X(f) is simply a scaled version of X(f)corresponding to the magnitude of
the flat part. Thus, the input signal spectrum X(f) is undistorted at the output. Such a
wireless channel is termed a flat-fading channel.
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
Consider the case where the signal bandwidth Bs is greater than the coherence bandwidth
Bc.
In this scenario, different parts of the signal spectrum X(f) experience different attenuations,
i.e., the attenuation is frequency-selective. Thus, the output spectrum Y(f) is a distorted
version of the input spectrum X(f).Such a wireless channel is termed frequency-selective
channel due to the frequency dependent nature of the attenuation of the signal.
The impact of the frequency spectrum H(f) of the wireless channel on the input
signal x(t)can be summarized as
Bs≤Bc ⇒ No distortion in received signal,i.e.,flat fading
Bs≥Bc ⇒ Distortion in received signal,i.e.,frequency-selective fading
Consider a wireless delay profile
Thus, the frequency response of the channel is given as the sum of L harmonics, with
the lth component changing at the rate τl.
Consider now the highest frequency harmonic corresponding to i.e., with
phase varying at the rate τL−1.
Its values at frequencies 0and 1 /4τL−1 are given as
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
Thus, the bandwidth of the response H(f) is approximately given as
Hence, the coherence bandwidth of the filter H(f) is approximately given as
Finally, observe that τ L – 1 is the maximum delay spread σ τ max of the channel. Thus,
the coherence bandwidth B c can be related to the delay spread στ as
o Thus, it can be seen that the above relation satisfies the intuitive property
that coherence bandwidth Bc decreases as the delay spread σ τ increases.
Finally, the approximate delay spread corresponding to outdoor channels with a
typical delay spread of 2μs can be derived as
Thus, the typical delay spread of outdoor cellular wireless channels is Bc=250kHz.
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
RELATION BETWEEN ISI AND COHERENCE BANDWIDTH
Consider a Pulse Amplitude Modulated(PAM) signal x(t)of symbol time Ts transmitted
by the base station.
Also consider the presence of a scatter component at a delay of τ 1=Td in addition to
the direct line-of-sight component with a delay τ0=0.
The net signal sensed by the receiver is the sum of the direct and scatter
components, i.e., x(t) and x(t−τ0).
if the delay spread, στ=τ1−τ0 is comparable to the symbol time Ts, when these two
signals are superposed at the receiver, the symbols 0 from x(t) adds to a different
symbol from x(t−τ0).
For instance, in the figure, s0 adds to s−1, i.e., the previous symbol.
If the delay spread increases, and the number of interfering paths correspondingly
increases, the severity of ISI increases, with several symbols superposing at the
receiver.
Relation between ISI and delay spread
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
Severe ISI caused by multiple scatter components
Let us now analyze the criterion for occurrence of ISI. It can be that the ISI at the
receiver is related to the interplay between the symbol time Ts and delay spread Td.
when the symbol time Ts is much larger than the delay spread Td,there is no ISI.
However, as the delay spread Td becomes comparable to Ts, it leads to ISI.
The symbol time Ts is related to the bandwidth Bs of the signal as Ts= 1/ Bs .
The delay spread Td is related to the coherence bandwidth Bc as
Negligible ISI when σ τ <<T s
In the time domain, if the delay spread is much larger compared to the symbol time, it
results in inter-symbol interference.
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
Correspondingly, in the frequency domain, this implies that the bandwidth of the
signal is much larger than the coherence bandwidth of the channel.
Thus, in effect, one is trying to push a signal of much higher bandwidth through a
channel filter, with a much smaller bandwidth. This results in frequency-selective
distortion. Thus, to correct for the inter-symbol interference at the receiver, one needs
to intuitively multiply by the inverse of the channel response filter, i.e.,
to convert the frequency selective channel into a system with a net flat-fading
response. This process, termed equalization.
DOPPLER FADING IN WIRELESS SYSTEMS
The Doppler shift is a fundamental principle related to the electromagnetic radio-
wave propagation.
the Doppler shift associated with an electromagnetic wave is defined as the
perceived change in the frequency of the wave due to relative motion between the
transmitter and receiver
Doppler fading due to user mobility
Doppler fading is inherent in wireless communications due to the untethered nature
of mobile transceivers, which enables mobility in wireless systems, leading to relative
motion between the transmitter and the receiver.
Doppler Shift Computation
Consider the scenario shown pictorially in Figure
Doppler scenario
where the mobile station is moving with a velocity v at an angle θ with the line
joining the mobile and base station.
Let the carrier frequency be fc.
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
The Doppler shift for this scenario is given as
where c = 3 × 108m/s is the velocity of light, i.e., velocity of an electromagnetic wave
in free space.
The Doppler shift increases with the velocity v.
Moreover, it depends critically on the angle θ between the direction of motion and
the line joining the transmitter and receiver.
For instance, the Doppler shift is maximum when θ = 0, π, i.e., when the relative
motion is along the line joining the transmitter and receiver.
However, when θ = π /2 , i.e., the motion is perpendicular to the receive direction,
the Doppler shift is zero.
Also, the Doppler shift is positive in the sense that the perceived frequency is higher
if 0 ≤ θ ≤ π /2 , in which case cos θ > 0.
On the other hand, it is negative, leading to a lower perceived frequency that the
transmit frequency is π/ 2 ≤ θ ≤ π.
Example : illustrates the computation of Doppler frequency for practical wireless scenarios
Solution: To begin with, we convert the velocity v from units of miles per hour to the
standard metres per second. Noting that a mile is equal to 1.61 km, the required velocity in
meters per second can be derived as
the Doppler shift fd can be computed as
Thus, the Doppler shift is fd = 143 Hz.
Further, since the mobile user is moving towards the base station, the Doppler shift is
positive, i.e., the perceived frequency f r is higher compared to the carrier frequency f c and is
given as fr = fc + fd = 1850 MHz + 143 kHz.
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
Doppler Impact on a Wireless Channel
Consider the impulse response of the i th component of the multipath channel given
as aiδ (t − τi).
Let the vehicle be moving with velocity v at an angle θ with respect to the line joining
the mobile and base station. This is shown schematically in Figure.
Observe that the distance between the base station and the mobile is changing
constantly due to the motion of the user. Therefore, as a result, the delay of the i th
signal component is also changing.
Let the initial distance for the i th signal component be di.
The initial propagation delay is
After a small interval of time t, this distance decreases by vt cos θ, since v cos θ is the
component of the velocity in the direction of the base station.
Hence, the delay of the ith component after time t is correspondingly given as
the flat-fading wireless-channel coefficient has been defined as
This model for the time-varying channel coefficient h is given as
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
where the last equality follows by substituting
ej2πfdt represents the time-varying phase of the wireless channel.
The mobility of the user in a wireless communication system leads to a Doppler shift,
which in turn results in a time-varying wireless channel coefficient.
This time-varying nature of the wireless channel is also termed time selectivity and
the time-varying wireless channel is termed a time-selective channel.
A channel can be both time- and frequency-selective. Such channels are termed
doubly selective wireless channels.
COHERENCE TIME OF THE WIRELESS CHANNEL
Consider the ith multipath component of the time-varying channel coefficient which is
given as
The channel changes significantly from time t = 0 to t = 1/ 4f d since the phase
changes by pi /2 .
This time duration in which the channel changes significantly due to the mobility of
the user is termed the coherence time, Tc.
minimum coherence time can be obtained by setting θ = π/ 2 , in other words,
corresponding to the fastest rate of change fd for a given velocity v.
This value of the coherence time Tc can be defined as
Consider a wireless channel which is changing with time. The coherence time Tc is
the approximate duration of time for which the wireless channel can be assumed to
be constant. This can also be expressed as
where Bd = 2fd is the Doppler spread of the wireless channel
lOMoARcPSD|24454659
EXAMPLES:
Consider the scenario a mobile user in a vehicle moving at 60 miles per hour. Compute the
coherence time Tc at the carrier frequency fc = 1.85 GHz.
Solution: To compute the coherence time Tc, we start by computing the maximum Doppler
shift fmax d corresponding to θ = 0◦.
The corresponding Doppler spread is given as Bd = 2 × f d max = 330 Hz.
Coherence time Tc is
*********************************************************************