ENGG 5303/IERG 5100 Advanced

Wireless Communications
Part III:
Small Scale Fading

Update
We have considered
Large scale fading: Path loss and shadowing

We will now consider

Small scale fading: multipath fading
Flat and frequency selective fading
Rayleigh fading
Doppler spread and coherence time
Delay spread and coherence bandwidth

Statistical Multipath Model

Random number of multipath components, each with

Random
Random
Random
Random

amplitude
phase
Doppler shift
delay

Random components change with time

Leads to time-varying channel impulse response

Measured Channel Impulse Response

Time Varying Multipath Channel

Baseband Representation of Digitally

Modulated Passband Signals
TX passband signals

Complex Representation of passband signals

x
4-PSK
6

Representation of Received Passband

Signals

Multipath channel

Random Phase

Random Amplitude
Impulse response of the channel at time t to the impulse
input at time t-t

8

Rayleigh fading

Update
We have considered
Large scale fading: Path loss and shadowing

We will now consider

Small scale fading: multipath fading
Flat and frequency selective fading
Rayleigh fading
Delay spread and coherence bandwidth
Doppler spread and coherence time
The effects of fading on system performance

10

Flat Fading vs. Frequency Selective Fading

Flat fading:
L=1, i.e., no delay spread
Channel impulse response is one single impulse
The frequency response is a constant (over the
communication bandwidth)
Usually occurs for narrowband communication, i.e.,
low symbol rates

Flat Fading vs. Frequency Selective Fading

Frequency selective fading:
L>1, i.e., with delay spread
Channel impulse response consists of multiple
impulses
The frequency response varies over the
communication bandwidth
Usually occurs for wideband communication, i.e.,
high symbol rates

Multipath Dispersion and Frequency

Selectivity
Time dispersion parameters
Mean excess delay

Root mean square delay spread

Maximum excess delay

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Multipath Dispersion and Frequency

Selectivity
Delay spread ( t )
Spread of delays in echo

1
B

Coherence bandwidth ( c 5 )
t
Minimum separation of frequency for uncorrelated
fading
Typical values
Indoor: Bc ~ 1MHz
Outdoor: Bc ~ 100 kHz.

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Time Varying Nature of Channel

Fading

Time-Varying Nature of Wireless Channel

Cause for time-varying nature

movements of mobile or objects in the environment

I (t) or Q (t)

On each path, l is a random process

This random process is correlated in time
The faster the autocorrelation function decays with the
time difference, the faster the channel varies
To measure how fast the channel varies: Doppler spread
and coherence time.

16

Doppler Shift
A measure of how fast the channel fading varies
The frequency of radio wave changes when the receiver
moves relative to the transmitter (source of the wave)
The received frequency is higher compared to the emitted
frequency when the receiver approaches the transmitter,
and lower when the receiver moves away from the
transmitter

Doppler Shift
Doppler frequency shift
fd =

v
cos

Doppler spread: the

maximum Doppler shift observ
fD = v

sourc
e

er

Doppler Shift

One second of Rayleigh fading with

a Doppler spread of 10Hz

One second of Rayleigh fading with

a Doppler spread of 100Hz

Autocorrelation
(

E (t) * (t + ) J 0 2 f D

f D = 10Hz

Doppler Spread and Coherence Time

Doppler spread (
)
Spread of frequency due to mobility

Coherence time (
for time correlation above
0.5)
Minimum separation of time for uncorrelated fading
Typical Values
Pedestrian (~ 5 km / hr) fd ~ 14 Hz (at 2.4 GHz)
Vehicular (~ 100 km/hr) fd ~ 300 Hz (at 2.4 GHz)
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Fast and Slow Fading

Very Fast Fading (Very rare in practical
systems)
Coherence time < Symbol period
Channel variations faster than baseband signal
variations

Fast Fading
Coherence time ~ 10 to a few hundred symbol
periods

Slow Fading
Coherence time ~ a thousand or more symbol
periods

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23

Wireless Channel

Input

Outpu
t