CHAPTER 5

OVERVIEW OF
WIRELESS
COMMUNICATIONS

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Overview of Wireless 5-1

 SPECTRUM
CONSIDERATIONS ‫اعتبارات خاصة بالطيف‬
‫الترددي‬
• Controlled by regulatory bodies ‫تتحكم فيها الهيئات‬
– Carrier frequency‫التردد الذي ترسل عنده االشارة‬
– Signal Power‫مقدار الطاقة إلرسال االشارة‬
– Multiple Access Scheme‫ نظام وصول متعدد‬ex:
• Divide into time slots –Time Division Multiple Access
(TDMA) ‫الوصول المتعدد من المستخدمين بتقسيم القناة لفترات زمنية كل‬
‫وقت محدد لمستخدم‬
• Divide into frequency bands – Frequency Division Multiple
Access (FDMA)‫تقسيم القناة الى نطاقات تردد مختلفة‬
• Different signal encodings – Code Division Multiple Access
(CDMA)‫تخصيص اكواد للمستخدمين يمكنهم ارسال مع بعض دون تداخل‬

Overview of Wireless 5-2

 SPECTRUM CONSIDERATIONS
• Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the
United States regulates spectrum ‫هيئة االتصاالت الفيدرالية‬
• ‫ حسب نوع المستخدمين‬،‫الطيف الترددي يتم تقسيمه إلى عدة فئات‬
:‫ ومنها‬،‫واألغراض التي يستخدم ألجلها‬
– Military
– Broadcasting ‫البث محطات التلفاز واإلذاعة‬
– Public Safety ‫يستخدم من قبل الشرطة‬
– Mobile ‫نطاقات التردد للهواتف ونت الالسلكي‬
– Amateur ‫الهواة ألغراض شخصية دون تحقيق أرباح‬
– Government exclusive, non-government exclusive, or both
– Many other categories

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 SPECTRUM CONSIDERATIONS
• Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM)
bands ‫نطاقات‬
– Can be used without a license
– As long as power and spread spectrum regulations are
followed
• ISM bands are used for;
-WLANs ‫شبكات محلية السلكية‬Wi-Fi
– Wireless Personal Area networks ‫شبكات السلكية شخصيه‬
‫بلوتوث‬
– Internet of Things ‫ربط األجهزة الذكية لجمع البيانات والتحكم بها‬
‫عن بعد‬

Overview of Wireless 5-4

 PROPAGATION MODES ‫انماط انتشار‬
‫الموجات الكهرومغناطيسية‬
• Ground-wave propagation - waves in this frequency range
are scattered‫ تشتيتها‬by the atmosphere‫ الغالف الجوي‬in such a way
that they do not penetrate ‫تخترق‬the upper atmosphere
• Sky-wave propagation- a signal from an earth-based
antenna is refracted‫ تنكسر‬from the ionized layer of the upper
atmosphere (ionosphere) back down to earth. A sky-Wave
signal can travel through a number of hops, bouncing back and
forth between the ionosphere and the earth’s surface
• Line-of-sight propagation- a characteristic of
electromagnetic radiation in which two stations can only
transmit and receive data signals when they're in direct view of
each other with no obstacles‫ بدون عوائق‬in between. Satellite and
microwave transmission are two common examples of LoS
communication.

Overview of Wireless 5-5

5.1 WIRELESS PROPAGATION MODES
Overview of Wireless 5-6
 GROUND WAVE PROPAGATION
• Follows contour of the earth
• Can propagate considerable distances
• Frequencies up to 2 MHz
• Example
– AM radio

Overview of Wireless 5-7

 SKY WAVE PROPAGATION
• Signal reflected from ionized layer of atmosphere
back down to earth
• Signal can travel a number of hops, back and forth
between ionosphere and earth’s surface
• Reflection effect caused by refraction
• Examples
– Amateur radio ‫راديو الهواة نقل إشارات لمسافات طويلة حاالت طوارئ‬
‫او لمتعة الهواة‬
– CB (Citizens band) radio ‫شائع االستخدام لالتصاالت األرضية خاصه‬
‫بين سائقي الشاحنات‬
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 LINE-OF-SIGHT PROPAGATION
• Transmitting and receiving antennas must be within line
of sight
– Satellite‫ االقمار الصناعية‬communication – signal above 30 MHz not
reflected by ionosphere
– Ground communication – antennas within effective line of site
due to refraction
• Refraction – bending of microwaves by the atmosphere
– Velocity of electromagnetic wave is a function of the density of
the medium ‫سرعة الموجات الكهرومغناطيسية تتأثر بكثافة الوسط‬
– When wave changes medium, speed changes
– Wave bends at the boundary between mediums

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 FIVE BASIC PROPAGATION
MECHANISMS
1. Free-space propagation- assumes a transmit
antenna and a receive antenna to be located in an
otherwise empty environment.

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 FIVE BASIC PROPAGATION
MECHANISMS, CONT…
2. Transmission
– Through a medium or into a new medium.
– Refraction occurs at boundaries
 FIVE BASIC PROPAGATION
MECHANISMS, CONT…
3. Reflections
– Waves impinge upon surfaces that are large
compared to the signal wavelength
 FIVE BASIC PROPAGATION
MECHANISMS, CONT…
4. Diffraction
– Secondary waves behind objects
with sharp edges

5. Scattering
– Interactions between small objects or rough
surfaces
 ANTENNAS
• An antenna is an electrical conductor or
system of conductors
– Transmission - radiates electromagnetic energy
into space
– Reception - collects electromagnetic energy from
space
• In two-way communication, the same antenna
can be used for transmission and reception
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 RADIATION PATTERNS
• Radiation pattern
– Graphical representation of radiation properties of an antenna
– Depicted as two-dimensional cross section
• Beam width (or half-power beam width)
– Measure of directivity of antenna
• Reception pattern
– Receiving antenna’s equivalent to radiation pattern
• Sidelobes
– Extra energy in directions outside the mainlobe
• Nulls
– Very low energy in between mainlobe and sidelobes
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5.2 ANTENNA RADIATION PATTERNS
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 ATTENUATION
• Strength of signal falls off with distance over
transmission medium
• Attenuation factors for unguided media:
– Received signal must have sufficient strength so that
circuitry in the receiver can interpret the signal
– Signal must maintain a level sufficiently higher than noise
to be received without error
– Attenuation is greater at higher frequencies, causing
distortion

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5.3 FREE SPACE LOSS
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 MODELS DERIVED FROM
EMPIRICAL MEASUREMENTS
• Need to design systems based on empirical data applied to a
particular environment
– To determine power levels, tower heights, height of mobile
antennas
• Okumura developed a model, later refined by Hata
– Detailed measurement and analysis of the Tokyo area
– Among the best accuracy in a wide variety of situations
• Predicts path loss for typical environments
– Urban
– Small, medium sized city
– Large city
– Suburban
– Rural. //first here Overview of Wireless 5-19
 CATEGORIES OF NOISE
• Thermal Noise
• Intermodulation noise
• Crosstalk
• Impulse Noise

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 THERMAL NOISE
• Thermal noise due to agitation of electrons
• Present in all electronic devices and
transmission media
• Cannot be eliminated
• Function of temperature
• Particularly significant for satellite
communication

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 NOISE TERMINOLOGY
• Intermodulation noise – occurs if signals with
different frequencies share the same medium
– Interference caused by a signal produced at a frequency that
is the sum or difference of original frequencies
• Crosstalk – unwanted coupling between signal paths
• Impulse noise – irregular pulses or noise spikes
– Short duration and of relatively high amplitude
– Caused by external electromagnetic disturbances, or faults
and flaws in the communications system

Overview of Wireless 5-22

 EXPRESSION Eb/N0
• Ratio of signal energy per bit to noise power density
per Hertz
Eb S / R

N0 N0
• The bit error rate (i.e., bit error probability) for digital
data is a function of Eb/N0
– Given a value for Eb/N0 to achieve a desired error rate,
parameters of this formula can be selected
– As bit rate R increases, transmitted signal power must
increase to maintain required Eb/N0

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5.4 GENERAL SHAPE OF BER VERSUS Eb/N0 CURVES
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 OTHER IMPAIRMENTS
• Atmospheric absorption – water vapor and
oxygen contribute to attenuation
• Multipath – obstacles reflect signals so that
multiple copies with varying delays are
received
• Refraction – bending of radio waves as they
propagate through the atmosphere

Overview of Wireless 5-25

 THE EFFECTS OF MULTIPATH
PROPAGATION
• Reflection, diffraction, and scattering
• Multiple copies of a signal may arrive at different
phases
– If phases add destructively, the signal level relative to
noise declines, making detection more difficult
• Intersymbol interference (ISI)
– One or more delayed copies of a pulse may arrive at
the same time as the primary pulse for a subsequent bit
• Rapid signal fluctuations
– Over a few centimeters

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5.5 SKETCH OF THREE IMPORTANT PROPAGATION MECHANISMS
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5.6 TWO PULSES IN TIME-VARIANT MULTIPATH
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(decibel-milliwatts)

5.7 TYPICAL LARGE-SCALE AND SMALL-SCALE FADING IN AN URBAN

MOBILE ENVIRONMENT Overview of Wireless 5-29
 TYPES OF FADING
• Large-scale fading
– Signal variations over large distances
– Path loss LdB as we have seen already
– Shadowing

Overview of Wireless 5-30

 TYPES OF FADING
• Doppler Spread
– Frequency fluctuations caused by movement
– Coherence time Tc characterizes Doppler shift
• How long a channel remains the same
– Coherence time Tc >> Tb bit time  slow fading
• The channel does not change during the bit time
– Otherwise fast fading
• Example 6.11: Tc = 70 ms, bit rate rb = 100 kbs
– Bit time Tb = 1/100 × 103 = 10 μs
– Tc >> Tb? 70 ms >> 10 μs?
– True, so slow fading

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 TYPES OF FADING
– Signal bandwidth Bs is proportional to the bit rate
– If Bc >> Bs, then flat fading
• The signal bandwidth fits well within the channel bandwidth
– Otherwise, frequency selective fading
• Example 6.11: Bc = 150 kHz, bit rate rb = 100
kbs
– Assume signal bandwidth Bs ≈ rb, Bs = 100 kHz
– Bc >> Bs? 150 kHz >> 100 kHz?
– Using a factor of 10 for “>>”, 150 kHz is not more
than 10 ×100 kHz
– False, so frequency selective fading

Overview of Wireless 5-32

 CHANNEL CORRECTION
MECHANISMS
• Forward error correction
• Adaptive equalization
• Adaptive modulation and coding
• Diversity techniques and MIMO
• OFDM
• Spread sprectrum
• Bandwidth expansion

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 FORWARD ERROR CORRECTION
FEC
• Transmitter adds error-correcting code to data block
– Code is a function of the data bits
• Receiver calculates error-correcting code from
incoming data bits
– If calculated code matches incoming code, no error
occurred
– If error-correcting codes don’t match, receiver attempts to
determine bits in error and correct
• Subject of Chapter 10

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5.15 FORWARD ERROR CORRECTION PROCESS
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 ADAPTIVE EQUALIZATION
• Can be applied to transmissions that carry analog or
digital information
– Analog voice or video
– Digital data, digitized voice or video
• Used to combat intersymbol interference
• Involves gathering dispersed symbol energy back into
its original time interval
• Techniques
– Lumped analog circuits
– Sophisticated digital signal processing algorithms

Overview of Wireless 5-36

 DIVERSITY TECHNIQUES
• Diversity is based on the fact that individual channels
experience independent fading events
• Space diversity – techniques involving physical
transmission path, spacing antennas
• Frequency diversity – techniques where the signal is
spread out over a larger frequency bandwidth or
carried on multiple frequency carriers
• Time diversity – techniques aimed at spreading the
data out over time
• Use of diversity
– Selection diversity – select the best signal
– Combining diversity – combine the signals
Overview of Wireless 5-37
 MULTIPLE INPUT MULTIPLE
OUTPUT (MIMO) ANTENNAS
• Use antenna arrays for
– Diversity – different signals from different antennas
– Multiple streams – parallel data streams
– Beamforming – directional antennas
– Multi-user MIMO – directional beams to multiple
simultaneous users
• Modern systems
– 4 × 4 (4 transmitter and 4 reciever antennas)
– 8×8
– Two dimensional arrays of 64 antennas
– Future: Massive MIMO with many more antennas

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5.9 FOUR USES OF MIMO
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 ADAPTIVE MODULATION AND
CODING (AMC)
• The modulation process formats the signal to best
transmit bits
– To overcome noise
– To transmit as many bits as possible
• Coding detects and corrects errors
• AMC adapts to channel conditions
– 100’s of times per second
– Measures channel conditions
– Sends messages between transmitter and receiver to
coordinate changes

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 BANDWIDTH EXPANSION
• A signal can only provide a limited bps/Hz
– More bandwidth is needed
• Carrier aggregation
– Combine multiple channels
• Example: Fourth-generation LTE combines third-generation carriers
• Frequency reuse
– Limit propagation range to an area
– Use the same frequencies again when sufficiently far away
– Use large coverage areas (macro cells) and smaller coverage areas
(outdoor picocells or relays and indoor femtocells)
• Millimeter wave (mmWave)
– Higher carrier frequencies have more bandwidth available
– 30 to 300 GHz bands with millimeter wavelengths
– Yet these are expensive to use and have problems with obstructions

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