Subject : Wireless and Cellular

Communication (18EC81)

MODULE-1
 TEXT BOOKS
Text Books:
1. “FUNDAMENTALS OF LTE”, Arunabha Ghosh,
Jan Zhang, Jefferey Andrews, Riaz Mohammed,
Pearson education (Formerly Prentice Hall,
Communications Engg. and Emerging
Technologies) ISBN-13: 978-0-13-703311-9.
2. “Introduction to Wireless
Telecommunications Systems and Network”,
Gary Mullet, First Edition, Cengaga learning
India Pvt Ltd., 2006, ISBN-13:
978-81-315-0559-5.

Reference Books:
1. “Wireless Communications: Principles and
Practice” Theodore Rappaport, 2nd Edition,
Prentice Hall Communications engineering
and emerging Technologies Series, 2002, ISBN
0-13-042232-0.
Free Space Propagation Model
⚫ The free space propagation model is used
to predict received signal strength when
the transmitter and receiver have a clear,
unobstructed line-of-sight path between
them.
⚫ Satellite communication systems and
microwave line-of-sight links typically
undergo free space propagation.
⚫ The free space model predicts that
received power decays as the function of
T-R separation distance raised to some
power.
⚫ The free space power received by a antenna
which is seperated from radiating transmitter
antenna by a distance d, is given by the Friis
free space equation,

(1)

⚫ where Pr and Pt are the received and

transmitted powers and λ is the wavelength in
meters.
⚫ Gt is the transmitter antenna gain Gr receiver
antenna gain.
⚫ d is the T-R separation distance in meters and
⚫ The free space power received by a antenna
which is seperated from radiating transmitter
antenna by a distance d, is given by the Friis
free space equation,

(1)

⚫ where Pr and Pt are the received and

transmitted powers and λ is the wavelength in
meters.
⚫ Gt is the transmitter antenn gain Gr receiver
antenna gain.
⚫ d is the T-R separation distance in meters and
⚫ The effective aperture, Ae is related to the
physical size of the antenna, and λ , is
related to the carrier frequency
⚫ λ = c/f =
⚫ Where f is the carrier frequency in Hertz, ωc
is the carrier frequency in radians per
second and c is the speed of light in
meters.
⚫ The values of Pt and Pr must be expressed
in the same units and Gt and Gr are
unitless.
⚫ The miscellaneous losses L (L>=1) are
usually due to transmission line
attenuation, filter losses and antenna losses
in the communication system. L=1
⚫ Isotropic radiator is an ideal antenna which
radiates power with unit gain uniformly in all
directions and is often used as reference
antenna gains in wireless systems.
⚫ The effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP)
is defined as
EIRP = Pt Gt
And it represents the maximum radiated
power available from a transmitter in the
direction of maximum antenna gain as
compared to isotropic radiator.
⚫ The path loss which represents signal
attenuation as a positive quantity measured in
dB is defined as the difference (in dB) between
effective transmitted power and the received
⚫ The path loss for the free space model when
antenna gains are included is given by,

⚫ When the antenna gains are excluded, the

antennas are assumed to have unity gains and
path loss is given by

⚫ Friis free space model is only a valid

predictor for Pr for values of d which are in
the far-field of the transmitting antenna.
⚫ The far-field or fraunhofer region of a
transmitting antenna is defined as the region
beyond the far-field distance df which is
related to the largest dimension of the
transmitter antenna aperture and the carrier
wavelength. The Fraunhofer distance is given
by,

⚫ To be in far field region df must satisfy,

df >>D and df >>λ
Where D is the largest physical linear
dimension of the antenna.
⚫ The received power in free space at a
distance greater than d0 is given by,
d>=d0>=df
⚫ In mobile radio systems, Pr may change by
many orders of magnitude over a typical
coverage area of several square kilometers, Pr
in units of dBm , the received power is
Relating Power to Electric Field
⚫ It can be proven that any radiating
structure produces electric and magnetic
field.
⚫ Consider a small linear radiator of length
L, that is placed coincident with the z-axis
and has its center at origin as shown in
figure below,
⚫ If current flows through such an antenna, it
launches electric and magnetic fields that
can be expressed as,

⚫ With
The Three Basic Propagation
Mechanism
⚫ Reflection, diffraction and scattering are
the three basic propagation mechanism
which impact propagation in a mobile
communication system.
⚫ Reflection occurs when a propagating
electromagnetic wave impinges upon an
object which has very large dimensions
when compared to the wavelength of the
propagating wave.
⚫ Reflection occurs from surface of earth and
from buildings and walls.
⚫ Diffraction occurs when the radio path
between the transmitter and receiver is
obstructed by a surface that has sharp
irregularities.
⚫ Scattering occurs when the medium through
which the waves travels consists of objects
with dimensions that are small compared to
the wavelength and where the number of
obstacles per unit volume is large.
Ground Reflection (Two-Ray)
Model
⚫ In most mobile communication systems,
the maximum T-R separation distance is at
most only a few of tens of Kms, and the
Earth may be assumed to be flat.
⚫ The Total received field, ETOT is then a
result of direct line-of-sight component,
ELOS and the ground reflected component
Eg.
⚫ The free space propagating E-fields is
given by,

⚫ The E-field due to the line of sight

component at the receiver can be
expressed as,

⚫ The E-field for the ground reflected wave is

expressed as,
⚫ According to laws of reflection in
dielectrics,
Diffraction
Fresnal Zone Geometry
⚫ Consider a transmitter and receiver
separated in free space
Knife Edge Diffraction Model
⚫ When shadowing is caused by a single object
such as hill or mountain, the attenuation
caused by diffraction can be estimated by
treating obstruction as a diffracting knife edge.
⚫ This is the simplest of diffraction models, and
the diffraction loss in this case can be readily
estimated using the classical Fresnel solution
for the field behind a knife edge (also called a
half-plane).
⚫ Consider a receiver at point R, located in the
shadowed region (also called the diffraction
zone).
⚫ The field strength at point R in the figure 4.13
is a vector sum of the fields due to all of the
⚫ The electric field strength, Ed of a knife edge
diffracted wave is given by,

⚫ Where E0 is the free space field strength in the

absence of both the ground and knife edge,
F(v) is the complex Fresnel integral. The
Fresnel integral F(v) is a function of the
Fresnel-Kirchoff diffraction parameter v,
defined in equation 4.56 and is commonly
evaluated using tables and graph for given
values of v.
⚫ The diffraction gain due to the presence of a
knife edge, as compared to the free space
E-field, is given by
⚫ An approximate solution for equation 4.60
is
Multiple Knife-Edge Diffraction
⚫ In more practical situations, especially in
hilly terrain, the propagation path may
consist of more than one obstruction, in
which case the total diffraction loss due to
all of the obstacles must be computed.
⚫ The series of obstacles be replaced by a
single equivalent obstacle so that the path
loss can be obtained using single
knife-edge diffraction models.
⚫ This method, oversimplifies the
calculations and often provides very
optimistic estimates of the received signal
strength.
 Scattering
⚫ The actual received signal in a mobile radio
environment is often stronger than what is
predicted by reflection and diffraction
models alone.
⚫ This is because when the radio wave
impinges on a rough surface, the reflected
energy is spread out in all directions due to
scattering.
⚫ Objects such as lamp posts and trees tend to
scatter energy in all directions, thereby
providing additional radio energy at a
receiver.
⚫ Flat surfaces that have much larger dimension
than a wavelength may be modeled as
reflective surfaces.
⚫ Surface roughness is often tested using the
Rayleigh criterion which defines a critical
height (hc) of surface proturberances for a
given angle of incident θi given by,

⚫ A surface is considered smooth if its minimum

to maximum protuberance h is less than hc
and is considered rough if the protuberance is
greater than hc
⚫ For rough surface s, the flat surface reflection
coefficient needs to be multiplied by a
scattering loss factor ρs , to account for the
⚫ Ament assumed that the surface height h is a
Gaussian distributed random variable with a
local mean and found ρs to be given by

⚫ The scattering loss factor derived by Ament

was modified by Boithias to give better
agreement with measure results, and is given
by,

⚫ The reflected E-fields for h>hc can be solved

for rough surfaces using a modified reflection
coefficient given as
 Radar Cross Section Model
⚫ The radar cross section (RCS) of a scattering
object is defined as the ratio of the power
density of the signal scattered in the direction
of the receiver to the power density of the
radio waves incident upon scattered object
and has units of square meters.
⚫ Analysis based on the geometric theory of
diffraction and physical optics may be used to
determine the scattered field strength.
⚫ For urban mobile radio systems, models
based on the bistatic radar equation may be
used to compute the received power due to
scattering in the far field.
⚫ The bistatic radar equation describes the
propagation of a wave traveling in free space
which impinges on a distant scattering object
and is then reradiated in the direction of the
receiver given by,

⚫ Where dT and dR are the distances from the

scattering object to the transmitter and
receiver respectively.
⚫ In the above equation the scattering object is
assumed to be in the far field of both
transmitter and receiver.
Practical Link Budget Design Using
Path Loss Models
⚫ Most of the propagation models are
derived using a combination of analytical
and empirical methods.
Log-Distance Path Loss Model
⚫ Both theoretical and measurement based
models indicate that average received
signal power decreases logarithmically with
distance whether in outdoor or indoor
radio channels.
⚫ The average large scale path loss for an
arbitrary T-R separation is expressed as a
function of distance by using a path loss
exponent, n

⚫
⚫ Where n is the path loss exponent which
indicates the rate at which the path loss
increases with distance d0 is the close in
reference distance which is determined
from measurements close to the
transmitter and d is the T-R separation
distance.
⚫ The value of n depends upon the specific
propagation environment.
Log-normal Shadowing
⚫ The model in equation 4.68 does not
consider the fact that the surrounding
environmental clutter may be vastly
different at 2 different locations having
same T-R separation.
⚫ This leads to measured signals which are
vastly different than the average value
predicted by equation (4.68).
⚫ Measurements have shown that at any
value of d, the path loss PL(d) at a
particular location is random and
distributed log-normally about the mean
distance-dependent value. That is,
Module 1 PART 2
THE BROADBAND WIRELESS CHANNEL: PATH LOSS
AND SHADOWING
The relative values of these parameters, which are
summarized in Table 2.1
Table 2.1 Key Wireless Channel Parameters
Path Loss
⚫ The first difference between wired and
wireless channels is the amount of transmitted
power that actually reaches the receiver.
⚫ Assuming an isotropic antenna is used, as
shown in Figure 2.2, the propagated signal
energy expands over a spherical wavefront, so
the energy received at an antenna a distance d
away is inversely proportional to the sphere
surface area, 4π .
⚫ The free-space path loss formula, or Friis formula,
is given more precisely as
⚫ where Pr and Pt are the received and
transmitted powers and λ is the wavelength.
⚫ Pr/Pt is the average value of the channel gain
⚫ If directional antennas are used at the
transmitter or receiver, a gain of Gt and/or Gr is
achieved and the received power is simply
increased by the gain of these antennas.
⚫ An important observation from equation is that
since c = fc*λ , λ = c/fc, the received power fall
offs quadratically with the carrier frequency.

Figure 2.2 Free space

propagation
⚫ The terrestrial propagation environment is not
free space.
⚫ It seems that reflections from the Earth or other
objects would actually increase the received
power since more energy would reach the
receiver.
⚫ Because a reflected wave often experiences a
180-degree phase shift, at relatively large
distances (usually over a kilometer) the
reflection serves to create destructive
interference, and the common 2-ray
approximation for path loss is:
⚫ In order accurately describe different
propagation environments, empirical models
are often developed using experimental data.
One of the simplest and most common is the
empirical path loss formula:

⚫ The path loss exponent α and the measured

path loss Po at a reference distance of do, which
is often chosen as 1 meter. Although Po should
be determined from measurements, it is often
well approximated (within several dB) as
simply (λ/4π)2when do = 1.
Shadowing
⚫ Many factors other than distance can have a
large effect on the total received power. For
example, as shown in Figure 2.3, obstacles such
as trees and buildings may be located between
the transmitter and receiver and cause
temporary degradation in received signal
strength.

Figure 2.3 Shadowing can cause large deviations from

path loss predictions.
⚫ Since modelling the locations of all objects in
every possible communication environment is
generally impossible, the standard method of
accounting for these variations in signal strength
is to introduce a random effect called shadowing.
With shadowing, the empirical path loss
formula becomes

⚫ where χ is a sample of the shadowing random

process. Hence, the received power is now also
modelled as a random process.
⚫ It should be emphasized that since shadowing is
caused by macroscopic objects, typically it has a
correlation distance on the order of meters or
tens of meters. Hence, shadowing is often
THE BROADBAND WIRELESS CHANNEL:
FADING
⚫ One of the aspects of wireless channels is the
fading phenomenon.
⚫ Unlike path loss or shadowing, which are
large-scale attenuation effects due to distance or
obstacles, fading is caused by the reception of
multiple versions of the same signal.
⚫ The multiple received versions are caused by
reflections that are referred to as multipath.
⚫ The reflections may arrive at very close to the
same time—for example, if there is local
scattering around the receiver—or the
reflections may arrive at relatively longer
intervals—for example, due to multiple
different paths between the transmitter and
⚫ When some of the reflections arrive at nearly
the same time, the combined effect of those
reflections can be seen in Figure 2.11.
⚫ Depending on the phase difference between
the arriving signals, the interference can be
either constructive or destructive, which
causes a very large observed difference in the
amplitude of the received signal.
⚫ In other words, moving the transmitter or
receiver even a very short distance can have a
dramatic effect on the received amplitude,
even though the path loss and shadowing
effects may not have changed at all.
⚫ Consider a time-varying tapped-delay line channel
model of (2.1).
⚫ As either the transmitter or receiver move relative
to each other, the channel response h(t) will change.
⚫ This channel response can be thought of as having
two dimensions: a delay dimension τ and a
time-dimension t, as shown in Figure 2.12.
⚫ Since the channel changes over distance (and hence
time), the values of h0,h1, ..., hν may be totally
different at time t vs. time t + Δt. Because the
channel is highly variant in both
the τ and t dimensions, in order to discuss the
channel response, we must use statistical methods.
⚫ The most important and fundamental
function used to statistically describe
broadband fading channels is the
two-dimensional autocorrelation
function, A(Δτ, Δt).
⚫ Although this autocorrelation function is over
two dimensions (and hence requires a
three-dimensional plot), it can usefully be
thought of as two simpler functions, At(Δt)
and Aτ(Δτ), where Δτ and Δt have been set to
zero, respectively.
⚫ The autocorrelation function is defined as
⚫ where in the first step we have assumed that
the channel response is Wide Sense Stationary
(WSS) (and hence the autocorrelation function
only depends on Δt = t2 − t1)
⚫ In the second step we have assumed that the
channel response of paths arriving at different
times τ1 and τ2 are uncorrelated. This allows the
dependence on specific times τ1 and τ2 to be
replaced simply by τ = τ1 − τ2.
⚫ Channels that can be described by the
autocorrelation and are thus referred to as
Wide Sense Stationary Uncorrelated
Scattering (WSSUS), which is the most popular
model for wideband fading channels and
relatively accurate in many practical scenarios,
largely because the scale of interest
Delay Spread and Coherence
Bandwidth
⚫ The delay spread is a very important property
of a wireless channel, since it specifies the
duration of the channel impulse response h(τ, t).
⚫ The delay spread is the amount of time that
elapses between the first arriving path and the
last arriving (non-negligible) path.
⚫ The delay spread can be found by inspecting ;
that is, by setting Δt = 0 in the channel
autocorrelation function.
⚫ Aτ(Δτ) is often referred to as the Multipath
Intensity Profile, or power delay profile. If Aτ(Δτ) has
non-negligible values from (0,τmax), the
maximum delay spread is τmax.
⚫ This is an important definition because it
specifies how many taps ν will be needed in the
⚫ τrms gives a measure of the “width” or “spread”
of the channel response in time.
⚫ A large τrms implies a highly dispersive channel
in time and a long channel impulse response
(i.e., large ν), whereas a small τrms indicates that
the channel is not very dispersive, and hence
might require just a few taps to accurately
characterize.
⚫ A general rule of thumb is that τmax ≈ 5τrms.
⚫ The channel coherence bandwidth Bc is the
frequency domain dual of the channel delay spread.
The coherence bandwidth gives a rough measure
for the maximum separation between a
frequency f1 and a frequency f2 where the channel
frequency response is correlated. That is:
⚫ |f1 − f2| ≤ Bc H(f1) ≈ H(f2)
|f1 − f2| > Bc H(f1) and H(f2) are uncorrelated
⚫ Just as τmax is a value describing the channel
duration, Bc is a value describing the range of
frequencies over which the channel stays constant.
Given the channel delay spread, it can be shown
that
Doppler Spread and Coherence Time
⚫ The Doppler power spectrum gives the statistical
power distribution of the channel versus
frequency for a signal transmitted at just one
exact frequency (generally normalized as f = 0
for convenience).
⚫ Whereas the power delay profile was caused by
multipath between the transmitter and receiver,
the Doppler power spectrum is caused
by motion between the transmitter and receiver.
The Doppler power spectrum is the Fourier
transform of At(Δt), that is:
⚫ Unlike the power delay profile, the Doppler
power spectrum is non-zero strictly for Δf (−fD,
fD), where fD is called the maximum Doppler, or
Doppler spread. That is, ρt(Δf) is strictly
“band-limited.”
⚫ The Doppler spread is

⚫ where ν is the maximum speed between the

transmitter and receiver, fc is the carrier
frequency and c is the speed of light.
⚫ As can be seen, over a large bandwidth the
Doppler will change since the frequency over
the entire bandwidth is not fc.
⚫ However, as long as the communication
bandwidth B << fc, the Doppler power spectrum
⚫ Due to the time-frequency uncertainty
principle, since ρt(Δf) is strictly band-limited, its
time-frequency dual At(Δt) cannot be strictly
time-limited.
⚫ Since At(Δt) gives the correlation of the channel
over time, this means, the channel exhibits
non-zero correlation between any two time
instants.
⚫ However, in practice it is possible to define a
channel coherence time Tc, which, similarly to
coherence bandwidth, gives the period of time
over which the channel is significantly
correlated. Mathematically:
⚫ |t1 − t2| ≤ Tc h(t1) ≈ h(t2)
|t1 − t2| > tc h(t1) and h(t2) are uncorrelated
⚫ If the transmitter and receiver are moving fast
relative to each other and hence the Doppler is
large, the channel will change much more
quickly than if the transmitter and receiver are
stationary.
⚫ Values for the Doppler spread and the
associated channel coherence time are given
in Table 2.3 for two plausible LTE frequency
bands.
⚫ This table demonstrates one of the reasons that
mobility places severe constraints on the system
design.
⚫ At high frequency and mobility, the channel
may change up to 1000 times per second,
placing a large burden on overhead channels,
channel estimation algorithms, and making the
Table 2.3 Doppler Spreads and Approximate Coherence Times for LTE at
Pedestrian, Vehicular, and Maximum Speeds
 Angular Spread and Coherence Distance
⚫ The rms angular spread of a channel can be
denoted as θrms, and refers to the statistical
distribution of the angle of the arriving energy.
⚫ A large θrms implies that channel energy is coming
in from many directions, whereas a
small θrms implies that the received channel energy
is more focused.
⚫ A large angular spread generally occurs when there
is a lot of local scattering, and this results in more
statistical diversity in the channel, whereas more
focused energy results in less statistical diversity.
⚫ The dual of angular spread is coherence
distance, Dc. As the angular spread increases, the
coherence distance decreases, and vice versa.
⚫ A coherence distance of d means that any physical
⚫ For the case of Rayleigh fading, which assumes
a uniform angular spread, the well-known
relation is

⚫ An important trend to note from the above

relations is that the coherence distance
increases with the carrier wavelength λ, so
higher-frequency systems have shorter
coherence distances.
⚫ Angular spread and coherence distance are
particularly important in multiple antenna
systems.
⚫ The coherence distance gives a rule of thumb
for how far antennas should be spaced apart, in
order to be statistically independent.
⚫ If the coherence distance is very small, antenna
arrays can be effectively employed to provide
rich diversity.
⚫ On the other hand, if the coherence distance is
large, it may not be possible due to space
constraints to take advantage of spatial
diversity.
⚫ In this case, it would be preferable to have the
antenna array cooperate and use beamforming.
 Modelling Broadband Fading
Channels
⚫ In order to design wireless communication
systems, it is important to develop channel
models that incorporate their variations in time,
frequency and space.
⚫ The two major classes of models
are statistical and empirical.
⚫ Statistical models are simpler, and are useful for
analysis and simulations.
⚫ The empirical models are more complicated but
usually represent a specific type of channel
more accurately.
 Statistical Channel Models
⚫ As we have noted, the received signal in a
wireless system is the superposition of
numerous reflections, or multipath
components.
⚫ The reflections may arrive very closely spaced
in time—for example, if there is local
scattering around the receiver—or the
reflections may arrive at relatively longer
intervals.
⚫ When the reflections arrive at nearly the
same time, constructive and destructive
interference between the different reflection
causes the envelope of the received signal r(t)
to vary substantially.
 Statistical Channel Models
⚫ In terms of the previous section, we will first
consider the special case of the Multipath Intensity
Profile where Aτ(Δτ) ≈ 0 for Δτ ≠ 0.
⚫ That is, we only concern ourselves with the
scenario where all the received energy arrives at
the receiver at the same instant—this is step 1.
⚫ In practice, this is only true when the symbol time
is much greater than the delay spread, i.e., T τmax,
so these models are often said to be valid for
“narrowband fading channels.” In addition to
assuming a negligible multipath delay spread, we
will first consider just a “snapshot” value of r(t), and
we will provide statistical models for its amplitude
and power under various assumptions.
⚫ In the following section, we will consider how these
statistical values are correlated in time, frequency,
and space—this is step 2. Then finally, we will relax
Statistical Correlation of the Received
Signal
⚫ The statistical methods in the last section
discussed how samples of the received
signal were statistically distributed. Three
specific statistical models—Rayleigh,
Ricean, and Nakagami-m—and provided
the probability density functions (PDFs)
that gave the likelihoods of the received
signal envelope and power at a given time
instant.
⚫ Statistical models with the channel
autocorrelation function, Ac(Δη, Δt), in
order to understand how the envelope
signal r(t) evolves over time, or changes
⚫ Statistical Channel Models
⚫ Statistical models are simpler and are useful for
analysis and simulations using mathematical
approach.
⚫ These models are used to characterize the amplitude
and power of a received signal r(t) when all the
reflections arrive at about the same time.
⚫ This is only true when the symbol time is much
greater than the delay spread, i.e., T >>so these models
are often said to be valid for "narrowband fading
channels.
⚫ Some of the popular statistical models are:
⚫ 1. Rayleigh Fading
⚫ 2. Ricean Distribution
⚫ 3. Nakagami-m fading
⚫ 1. Rayleigh fading:
⚫ • Rayleigh fading is a model that is used to describe
the form of fading that occurs when multipath
propagation exists.
⚫ • Rayleigh fading is used when there are many objects
in the environment that scatter the radio signal before
⚫ • The received signal component can be
classified as in-phase rI(t) and quadrature
rQ (t) components of r(t) of a Gaussian
random variables.
⚫ • Consider a received signal r(t) at time t =
0, and
⚫ r(0) = rI(0) + rQ (0).
⚫ • The distribution of the envelope
amplitude is given as
⚫ The path loss and shadowing determine
the mean received power and the total
received power fluctuates around this
mean due to the fading. This is
demonstrated in Figure 11.
⚫ Figure 11: The three major channel attenuation
factors are shown in terms of their relative
spatial (and hence temporal) scales.
⚫ 2. Ricean distribution (line of sight channels):
⚫ • An important assumption in the Rayleigh
fading model is that all the arriving reflections
have a zero mean.
⚫ • In Ricean fading, a strong dominant
component is present for example, a
line-of-sight (LOS) path between the
transmitter and receiver.
⚫ • For a LOS signal, the received envelope
⚫ Since the Ricean distribution depends on the
LOS component's power , a common way to
characterize the channel is by the relative
strengths of the LOS and scattered paths.
⚫ The LOS factor K is quantified as

⚫ K=0 specifies the ricean distribution reduced to

Rayleigh and K=∞ specifies single LOS.
⚫ The average received power under ricean fading
is the combination of the scattering power and
the LOS power given as
3. Nakagami-m Fading (The general model):
⚫ It is a general model for wireless channel. The
probability density function (PDF) of Nakagami
fading is parameterized by m and given

⚫ Figure 12 shows comparison of the probability

distributions for Rayleigh, Ricean with K=1 and
Nakagami with m =2. All have average received
⚫ Figure 12: Probability distribution for
Rayleigh, Ricean and Nakagami.
5. Statistical correlation of the received signal:
⚫ Specific statistical models like Rayleigh, Ricean,
and Nakagami-m provided the probability
density functions (PDFs) that gave the likelihoods
of the received signal envelope and power at a
given time instant.
⚫ Use these PDF functions with the channel
autocorrelation function, 𝐴(∆𝜏,∆𝑡) in order to
understand how the envelope signal r(t) evolves
over time, or changes from one frequency or
location to another.
⚫ Analysis of statistical correlation of received
signal in different domains are
⚫ 1. Time correlation
⚫ 2. Frequency correlation
⚫ 3. The Dispersion selectivity duality
⚫ 4. Multi-dimensional correlation
 MODULE 1
Part 3: Cellular Concept
COMMUNICATION SYSTEM BUILDING
BLOCKS
⚫ All wireless digital communication systems
must possess a few key building blocks, as
shown in Figure 2.1. Even an LTE system can be
conceptually broken down into a collection
of links, with each link consisting of a
transmitter, channel, and receiver.
⚫ The transmitter receives packets of bits from a
higher protocol layer, and its duty is to send those
bits as electromagnetic waves toward the receiver.
⚫ The key steps in the digital domain are encoding
and modulation. The encoder generally adds
redundancy that will allow error correction at the
receiver.
⚫ The modulator prepares the digital signal for the
wireless channel and may comprise a number of
different operations.
⚫ The modulated digital signal is converted into a
representative analog waveform by a
digital-to-analog (D/A) convertor and then
upconverted to one of the desired LTE radio
frequency (RF) bands.
⚫ This RF signal is then radiated as electromagnetic
waves by a suitable antenna. The receiver performs
essentially the reverse of these operations.
⚫ After downconverting the received RF signal and
filtering out signals at other frequencies, the
resulting baseband signal is converted to a digital
⚫ There are, however, a nearly endless number of
choices presented to the designer of a digital
communication system. The LTE standard is
primarily relevant to the digital aspects of
wireless communication, in particular at the
transmitter side.
⚫ The receiver implementation is unspecified:
each equipment manufacturer is welcome to
develop efficient proprietary receiver
algorithms.
⚫ Aside from agreeing on a carrier frequency and
transmit spectrum mask, there are few
requirements placed on the RF units.
⚫ The main reason that the standard is primarily
interested in the digital transmitter is that the
receiver must understand what the transmitter
did in order to make sense of the received
CELLULAR SYSTEMS

1. The Cellular Concept

2. Analysis of Cellular Systems
3. Sectoring
1. The Cellular Concept
⚫ In cellular systems, the service area is
subdivided into smaller geographic areas
called cells that are each served by their own
base station.
⚫ In order to minimize interference between
cells, the transmit power level of each base
station is regulated to be just enough to provide
the required signal strength at the cell
boundaries.
⚫ Propagation path loss allows for spatial
isolation of different cells operating on the
same frequency channels at the same time.
Therefore, the same frequency channels can be
reassigned to different cells, as long as those
cells are spatially isolated.
⚫ Although perfect spatial isolation of different
⚫ frequency planning is required to determine a
proper frequency reuse factor and a
geographic reuse pattern. The frequency reuse
factor f is defined as f ≤ 1, where f = 1 means
that all cells reuse all the frequencies.
Accordingly, f = 1/3 implies that a given
frequency band is used by only 1 out of every 3
cells.
⚫ The reuse of the same frequency channels
should be intelligently planned in order to
maximize the geographic distance between the
co-channel base stations. Figure 2.5 shows an
example of hexagonal cellular system model
with frequency reuse factor f = 1/7, where cells
labelled with the same letter use the same
frequency channels.
⚫ Cellular systems allow the overall system
capacity to increase by simply making the cells
smaller and turning down the power. In this
manner, cellular systems have a very desirable
scaling property—more capacity can be
supplied by installing more base stations.
⚫ As the cell size decreases, the transmit power of
each base station also decreases
correspondingly. For example, if the radius of a
cell is reduced by half when the propagation
path loss exponent is 4, the transmit power
level of a base station is reduced by 12 dB (=10
log 16 dB).
⚫ Since cellular systems support user mobility,
seamless call transfer from one cell to another
should be provided. The handoff process
⚫ Although small cells give a large capacity
advantage and reduce power consumption,
their primary drawbacks are the need for more
base stations (and their associated hardware
costs), and the need for frequent handoffs.
⚫ The offered traffic in each cell also becomes
more variable as the cell shrinks, resulting in
inefficiency.
⚫ As in most aspects of wireless systems, an
appropriate tradeoff between these competing
factors needs to be determined depending on
the system requirements.
 Analysis of Cellular Systems
⚫ The performance of wireless cellular systems is
significantly limited by co-channel interference
(CCI), which comes from other users in the same
cell or from other cells.
⚫ In cellular systems, other cell interference (OCI) is a
decreasing function of the radius of the cell (R) and
the distance to the centre of the neighbouring
co-channel cell and an increasing function of
transmit power.
⚫ However, what determines performance (capacity,
reliability) is the SIR, i.e., the amount of desired
power to the amount of transmitted power.
⚫ Therefore, if all users (or base stations) increased or
decreased their power at once, the SIR and hence
the performance is typically unchanged which is
known as an interference-limited system.
⚫ where 1/f is the size of a cluster and the inverse
of the frequency reuse factor. Obviously, a
lower value of f reduces co-channel interference
so that it improves the quality of the
communication link and capacity.
⚫ The overall spectral efficiency decreases with
the size of a cluster, so f should be chosen just
small enough to keep the received
signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR)
above acceptable levels.
⚫ Since the background noise power is negligible
compared to the interference power in an
interference-limited environment, the received
signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) can be used
instead of SINR. If the number of interfering
cells is NI, the SIR for a mobile station can be
⚫ where S is the received power of the desired
signal and Ii is the interference power from
the ith co-channel base station.
⚫ The received SIR depends on the location of
each mobile station, and it should be kept above
an appropriate threshold for reliable
communication.
⚫ The received SIR at the cell boundaries is of
great interest since this corresponds to the
worst interference scenario.
⚫ The received SIR for the worst case given
in Figure 2.6 is expressed as
⚫ where χi denotes the shadowing from the ith
base station.
⚫ The outage probability that the received SIR
falls below a threshold can be derived from the
distribution. If the mean and standard deviation
of the lognormal distribution are μ and σ in dB,
the outage probability is derived in the form
of Q function

where γ is the threshold SIR level in dB

⚫ The SINR at the cell boundaries is too low to
achieve the outage probability design target if
universal frequency reuse is adopted.
⚫ Therefore, a lower frequency reuse factor is
typically adopted in the system design to satisfy
the target outage probability at the sacrifice of
spectral efficiency.
⚫ Figure 2.7 highlights the OCI problem in a cellular
system if universal frequency reuse is adopted. It
shows the regions of a cell in various SIR bins of
the systems with universal frequency reuse and f =
1/3 frequency reuse. The figure is based on a
two-tier cellular structure and the simple
empirical path loss model given in (2.7) with α =
3.5.
⚫ The SIR in most parts of the cell is very low if
universal frequency reuse is adopted. The OCI
problem can be mitigated if higher frequency
Sectoring
⚫ SIR is so bad in most of the cell, it is desirable to
find techniques to improve it without sacrificing
so much bandwidth, as frequency reuse does.
⚫ A popular technique is to sectorize the cells,
which is effective if frequencies are reused in
each cell. By using directional antennas instead of
an omni-directional antenna at the base station,
the co-channel interference can be significantly
reduced. An illustration of sectoring is shown
in Figure 2.8.
⚫ No capacity is lost from sectoring because
each sector can reuse time and code slots, so
each sector has the same nominal capacity as
an entire cell.
⚫ The capacity in each sector is actually higher
than that in a non-sectored cellular system
because the interference is reduced by
sectoring, since users only experience
interference from the sectors at their
frequency.
⚫ Figure 2.9 shows the regions of a 3-sector cell in
various SIR bins of the systems with universal
frequency reuse and 1/3 frequency reuse. All the
configurations are the same as those of Figure 2.7
except sectoring is added. Compared to Figure 2.7,
sectoring improves SIR especially at the cell
boundaries even when universal frequency reuse
is adopted. If sectoring is adopted with frequency
reuse, the received SIR can be significantly
improved as shown in Figure 2.9b where both f =
1/3 frequency reuse and 120-degree sectoring are
used.
⚫ Although sectoring is an effective and practical
approach to the OCI problem, it is not without
cost. Sectoring increases the number of
antennas at each base station and reduces
trunking efficiency.
⚫ Even though intersector handoff is simpler
compared to intercell handoff, sectoring also
increases the overhead due to the increased
number of intersector handoffs. Finally, in
channels with heavy scattering, desired power
can be lost into other sectors, which can cause
intersector interference as well as power loss.
THANK YOU