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Antenna
In the 1890s, there were only a few antennas in the world. These rudimentary devices were primarly a part of experiments that demonstrated the transmission of electromagnetic waves. By World War II, antennas had become so ubiquitous that their use had transformed the lives of the average person via radio and television reception. The number of antennas in the United States was on the order of one per household, representing growth rivaling the auto industry during the same period. By the early 21st century, thanks in large part to mobile phones, the average person now carries one or more antennas on them wherever they go (cell phones can have multiple antennas, if GPS is used, for instance). This significant rate of growth is not likely to slow, as wireless communication systems become a larger part of everyday life. In addition, the strong growth in RFID devices suggests that the number of antennas in use may increase to one antenna per object in the world (product, container, pet, banana, toy, cd, etc.). This number would dwarf the number of antennas in use today. Hence, learning a little (or a large amount) about of antennas couldn't hurt, and will contribute to one's overall understanding of the modern world. Classification of antenna General classification Antenna can be classified on various bases such as its geometrical shape and size, its directivity, its radiation pattern, its application and its frequency and wavelength. Antennas are so classified in order to have the proper selection of different type of antennas for various applications to meet the requirement. Here are some brief details about different types of antenna. Antenna can be classified on the basis of: i) ii) iii) iv) i) Geometrical shape & size Directivity Radiation pattern Application Geometrical shape & size
We can classify antenna on the basis of its physical shape & size or its orientation. There are various kinds of antennas falling in this category of classification. a) Linear wire antennas - Half-wavelength dipole (mono-pole) antenna, dipole antenna b) Aperture antennas
c) Array antennas d) Microstrip antennas e) Reflector antennas f) Lens antennas ii) Directivity
Antenna can also be classified on the basis of their effective direction, i.e. The direction in which the antenna can show its effect (radiation or reception). There are two types of antennas available falling in this category: a) Directional antenna b) Omni directional antenna a) Directional antenna This type of antenna receives or radiates electromagnetic waves more effectively in one particular direction than in other directions. b) Omni directional antenna This type of antenna radiates or receives electromagnetic waves in all direction except in azimuth plane. This type of antenna is non-directional in azimuth plane and directional in any orthogonal plane or elevated plane. That means this antenna does not point only in one direction or it has not the specific direction to radiate or receive electro-magnetic wave in any of orthogonal plane. iii) Radiation pattern
Basically, there are three types of radiation pattern directional, omni directional and isotropic pattern. Among these, an isotropic antenna is a hypothetical lossless antenna having equal radiation in all directions. iv) Application
On this basis, different antennas can be deployed into different application to meet our requirement. That is we have to choose the best antenna for the specific purpose. We can choose antennas for mobile communication, for FM & AM broadcasting, for television broadcasting, for satellite communication, RADAR communication etc. Antennas used in cellular mobile communication system 1) Mobile antenna The requirement of mobile (motor vehicle mounted) antenna is an omni directional antenna, which can be located as high as possible from the point of reception. However the physical limitation of antenna height on the vehicle restricts this requirement. Generally the antenna should at least clear the top of the vehicle.
a. Roof mounted antenna The antenna pattern of a roof mounted antenna is more or less uniformly distributed around the mobile unit when measured at an antenna range in the 3 dB high gain antenna shows a 3 dB gain over the quarter wave antenna. However the gain of the antenna used at the mobile unit must be limited to 3 dB because the cell site antenna is arely as high as the broadcasting antenna and out of site conditions often prevail. The mobile antenna with a gain of more than 3 dB can receive only a limited portion of total multipath signal in the elevation as measured under the out of site condition. b. Glass mounted antenna There are many kinds of glass-mounted antennas. Energy is coupled through the glass: therefore there is no need to drill a hole. However, some energy is dissipated on passage through the glass. The antenna gain range is 1 to 3 dB depending on the operating frequency. The position of the glass-mounted antenna is always lower than that of the roof-mounted antenna; generally there is a 3 dB difference between these two type of antenna. Also glass-mounted antennas cannot be installed on the shaded glass found in some motor vehicles because this type of glass has a high metal content. c. Mobile high gain antennas A high gain antenna used on a mobile unit has been studied. This type of high gain antenna should be distinguished from the directional antenna. In the directional antenna, the antenna beam pattern is suppressed horizontally; in the high gain antenna, the pattern is suppressed vertically. To apply either a directional antenna or high gain antenna for reception in a radio environment, we must know the origin of the signal. If we point the directional antenna opposite to the transmitter site, we would in theory receive nothing. In a mobile radio environment, the scattered signals arrived at mobile unit from every direction with equal probability. That is why an omni directional antenna is used the scattered signals also arrived from different elevation angles. Lee and Brandt used two types of antenna, one /4 whip antenna with an elevation coverage of 39o and one of 4 dB gain antenna (4 dB gain with respect to the gain of a dipole) with an elevation coverage of 16 o, and measured the angle of signal arrival ion the sub urban Keyport- Matawan area of new jersey. There are two type of test: a line of sight (LOS) condition and an out of sight (OOS) condition. In Lee and Brandt's study the transmitter was located at an elevation of approximately of 100 m (300 ft) above sea level. The measured area were about 12 m (40 ft) above sea level and the path length about 3mi.The received signal from the 4 dB gain antenna was 4 dB stronger than that from the whip antenna under line of sight conditions. This is what we would expect. However, the received signal from the 4 dB gain antenna was only about 2 dB stronger than that from the whip antenna under OOS conditions.this is surprising. The region for the latter observation is that the scattered signals arriving under OOS conditions are spread over a wide elevation angle. A large portion of the signal outside the elevation angle of 16 o cannot be received by high gain antenna we may calculate the portion being received by the high gain antenna from the measured beam width (the beam width can be roughly obtained from the equation: d. Horizontally oriented space diversity antenna A two-branch space diversity receiver mounted on a motor vehicle has the advantage of reducing fading and thus can operate at a lower reception level. We must consider the following factor. The two antennas can be mounted either in line with or perpendicular to the motion of the vehicle. Theoretical analysis and measured data indicate that the inline arrangement of the two antennas
produces fewer level crossings that is less fading that the perpendicular arrangement does. e. Vertically oriented space diversity antenna The vertical separation between the two space diversity antennas can be determined from the correlation between their received signals. A set of measured data was obtained by using two antennas vertically separated by 1.5 wavelengths. 2) Microwave antenna Microwave antenna location Sometimes the reception is poor after the microwave antenna has been mounted on the antenna tower. A quick way to check the installation before making any other changes is to move the microwave antenna around within a 2 to 4 ft radius of the previous position and check the reception level. Surprisingly favorable results can be obtained immediately because multipart cancellation is avoided as a result of changing reflected paths at the receiving antenna. Also, at any fixed microwave antenna location, the received signal level over a 24-hr time period varies. Characteristics of microwave antennas: Microwave antennas can afford to concentrate their radiated power in a narrow beam because of the size of the antenna in comparison to the wavelength of the operating frequency; thus. High antenna gain is obviously desirable. Some of the more significant characteristics are discussed in the following paragraphs. Propagation modes Wireless transmissions propagate in three modes: ground-wave, sky-wave, and line-of-sight. Ground wave propagation follows the contour of the earth, while sky wave propagation uses reflection by both earth and ionosphere. Finally line of sight propagation requires the transmitting and receiving antennas to be within line of sight of each other. Which of these propagation modes dominates depends on the frequency of the underlying signal. Examples of ground wave and sky wave communication are AM radio and international broadcasts such as BBC. Above 30 MHz, neither ground wave nor sky wave propagation operates and the communication is through line of sight. If h is the height of a transmitting (resp., receiving) antenna in meters, then the distance to the receiver (resp., transmitter) for line-of-sight transmission should be at most d = 3.57 h kms. This can be proved using elementary geometry. Since microwaves are bent or refracted by the atmosphere, the effective line of sight is, in fact, larger than the true line of sight. We introduce an adjustment factor K to capture the refraction effect and obtain
d = 3.57 Kh kms. If the two antenna have heights h1 and h2 meters, then the distance between them for LOS propagation should be at most 3.57 K( h1 + h2 ) kms.
Fading
Fading refers to the variation of the signal strength with respect to time/distance and is widely prevalent in wireless transmissions. The most common causes of fading in the wireless environment are multipath propagation and mobility (of objects as well as the communicating devices). Multipath propagation. In wireless media, signals propagate using three principles: reflection, scattering, and diffraction. Reflection occurs when the signal encounters a large solid surface, whose size is much larger than the wavelength of the signal, e.g., a solid wall. Diffraction occurs when the signal encounters an edge or a corner, whose size is larger than the wavelength of the signal, e.g., an edge of a wall. Finally, scattering occurs when the signal encounters small objects of size smaller than the wavelength of the signal. One consequence of multipath propagation is that multiple copies of a signal propagation along multiple different paths, and arrive at any point at different times. So the signal received at a point is not only affected by the inherent noise, distortion, attenuation, and dispersion in the channel but also the interaction of signals propagated along multiple paths. Delay spread. Suppose we transmit a probing pulse from a location and measure the received signal at the recepient location as a function of time. The signal power of the received signal spreads over time due to multipath propagation. The delay spread is determined by the density function of the resulting spread of the delay over time. Average delay spread and root mean square delay pread are two parameters that can be calculated. Doppler spread. This is a measure of spectral broadening caused by the time rate of change of the mobile radio channel. It is caused by either relative motion between the mobile and base station or by movement of objects in the channel. When a pure sinusoid of frequency f is transmitted the received signal spectrum, the Doppler spectrum, is the range [f fd , f |fd ], where fd is referred to as the Doppler spread, given by v fd = cos , where v is the relative velocity of the mobile and is the angle formed by the direction of the motion and that of the signal, and is the wavelength of the carrier. 3 The relative size of the delay spread, as compared to the symbol period, has an impact on whether the effect of fading is uniform over all frequencies or varies across frequencies in the spectrum of the channel. Flat fading occurs when the bandwidth of the signal is less than the bandwidth of the channel, or delay spread is less than the symbol period. Frequency selective fading occurs when the bandwidth of the signal is greater than the bandwidth of the the channel, or the delay spread is greater than symbol period.
There are several fading models that capture different multipath propagation characteristics. Rayleigh fading models a worst-case scenario in which no path dominates (in fact, a LOS path may not even exist). Rician fading assumes that one of the paths, usually LOS, dominates all the other paths. When the velocity of the mobile is high, the Doppler spread is high, and the the resulting channel variations are faster than that of the baseband signal; this is referred to as fast fading. When channel variations are slower than the baseband signal variations, then the resulting fading is referred to as slow fading.
Packet mode
Packet mode multiple-access is typically also based on time-domain multiplexing, but not in a cyclically repetitive frame structure, and therefore it is not considered as TDM or TDMA. Due to its random character it can be categorised as statistical multiplexing methods, making it possible to provide dynamic bandwidth allocation.
When showing a cellular system we want to depict an area totally covered by radio, without any gaps. Any cellular system will have gaps in coverage, but the hexagonal shape lets us more neatly visualize, in theory, how the system is laid out. Notice how the circles below would leave gaps in our layout. Still, why hexagons and not triangles or rhomboids? Read the text below and we'll come to that discussion in just a bit.
Notice the illustration below. The middle circles represent cell sites. This is where the base station radio equipment and their antennas are located. A cell site gives radio coverage to a cell. Do you understand the difference between these two terms? The cell site is a location or a point, the cell is a wide geographical area. Okay? Most cells have been split into sectors or individual areas to make them more efficient and to let them to carry more calls. Antennas transmit inward to each cell. That's very important to remember. They cover a portion or a sector of each cell, not the whole thing. Antennas from other cell sites cover the other portions. The covered area, if you look closely, resembles a sort of rhomboid, as you'll see in the diagram after this one. The cell site equipment provides each sector with its own set of channels. In this example, just below , the cell site transmits and receives on three different sets of channels, one for each part or sector of the three cells it covers.
Is this discussion clear or still muddy? Skip ahead if you understand cells and sectors or come back if you get hung up on the terms at some later point. For most of us, let's go through this again, this time from another point of view. Mark provides the diagram and makes some key points here: "Most people see the cell as the blue hexagon, being defined by the tower in the center, with the antennae pointing in the directions indicated by the arrows. In reality, the cell is the red hexagon, with the towers at the corners, as you depict it above and I illustrate it below. The confusion comes from not realizing that a cell is a geographic area, not a point. We use the terms 'cell' (the coverage area) and 'cell site' (the base station location) interchangeably, but they are not the same thing.
When you turn on your phone the mobile switch determines what cell will carry the call and assigns a vacant radio channel within that cell to take the conversation. It selects the cell to serve you by measuring signal strength, matching your mobile to the cell that has picked up the strongest signal. Managing handoffs or handovers, that is, moving from cell to cell, is handled in a similar manner. The base station serving your call sends a hand-off request to the mobile switch after your signal drops below a handover threshold. The cell site makes several scans to confirm this and then switches your call to the next cell. You may drive fifty miles, use 8 different cells and never once realize that your call has been transferred. At least, that is the goal. Let's look at some details of this amazing technology, starting with cellular's place in the radio spectrum and how it began. The FCC allocates frequency space in the United States for commercial and amateur radio services. Some of these assignments may be coordinated with the International Telecommunications Union but many are not. Much debate and discussion over many years placed cellular frequencies in the 800 megahertz band. By comparison, PCS or Personal Communication Services technology, still
cellular radio, operates in the 1900 MHz band. The FCC also issues the necessary operating licenses to the different cellular providers. Although the Bell System had trialed cellular in early 1978 in Chicago, and worldwide deployment of AMPS began shortly thereafter, American commercial cellular development began in earnest only after AT&T's breakup in 1984. The United States government decided to license two carriers in each geographical area. One license went automatically to the local telephone companies, in telecom parlance, the local exchange carriers or LECs. The other went to an individual, a company or a group of investors who met a long list of requirements and who properly petitioned the FCC. And, perhaps most importantly, who won the cellular lottery. Since there were so many qualified applicants, operating licenses were ultimately granted by the luck of a draw, not by a spectrum auction as they are today. The local telephone companies were called the wireline carriers. The others were the non-wireline carriers. Each company in each area took half the spectrum available. What's called the "A Band" and the "B Band." The nonwireline carriers usually got the A Band and the wireline carriers got the B band. There's no real advantage to having either one. It's important to remember, though, that depending on the technology used, one carrier might provide more connections than a competitor does with the same amount of spectrum. [See A Band, B Band
So, we have two channels for every call with four frequencies involved. Clear? And a forward and reverse path for each frequency. Let's name them here. Again, a frequency is the medium upon which information travels. A path is the direction the information flows. Here you go: --> Forward control path: Base station to mobile <-- Reverse control path: Mobile to base station -------------------------------> Forward voice path: Base station to mobile <-- Reverse voice path: Mobile to base station One last point at the risk of losing everybody. You'll hear about dedicated control channels, paging channels, and access channels. These are not different channels but different uses of the control channel. Let's clear up this terminology confusion by looking at call processing. We'll look at the way AMPS sets up calls. Both analog and digital cellular (IS-136) use this method, CDMA cellular (IS-95) and GSM being the exceptions. We'll also touch on a number of new terms along the way. Still confused about the terms channels, frequency, and path?, and how they relate to each other? I understand. Click here for more: See channels, frequencies, and paths.
The control channel and the voice channel, paired frequencies upon which information flows. Paths indicate flow direction.
Radio propagation
Radio propagation is the behavior of radio waves when they are transmitted, or propagated from
one point on the Earth to another, or into various parts of the atmosphere. As a form of electromagnetic radiation, like light waves, radio waves are affected by the phenomena of reflection, refraction, diffraction, absorption, polarization and scattering. Radio propagation is affected by the daily changes of water vapor in the troposphere and ionization in the upper atmosphere, due to the Sun. Understanding the effects of varying conditions on radio propagation has many practical applications, from choosing frequencies for international shortwave broadcasters, to designing reliable mobile telephone systems, to radio navigation, to operation of radar systems. Radio propagation is also affected by several other factors determined by its path from point to point. This path can be a direct line of sight path or an over-the-horizon path aided by refraction in the ionosphere, which is a region between approximately 60 and 600 km. Factors influencing ionospheric radio signal propagation can include sporadic-E, spread-F, solar flares, geomagnetic storms, ionospheric layer tilts, and solar proton events.
Doubling the distance from a transmitter means that the power density of the radiated wave at that new location is reduced to one-quarter of its previous value. The power density per surface unit is proportional to the product of the electric and magnetic field strengths. Thus, doubling the propagation path distance from the transmitter reduces each of their received field strengths over a free-space path by one-half.
TYPES OF HANDOFFS Handoffs are broadly classified into two categorieshard and soft handoffs. Usually, the hard handoff can be further divided into two different typesintra- and intercell handoffs. The soft handoff can also be divided into two different typesmultiway soft handoffs and softer handoffs. In this chapter, we focus primarily on the hard handoff.
Cell Sectorization
One way to increase to subscriber capacity of a cellular network is replace the omni-directional antenna at each base station by three (or six) sector antennas of 120 (or 60) degrees opening. Each sector can be considered as a new cell, with its own (set of) frequency channel(s). The base station can either be located at the center of the original (large) cell, or the corners of the original (large) cell. The use of directional sector antennas substantially reduces the interference among co-channel cells. This allows denser frequency reuse.
Sectorization is less expensive than cell-splitting, as it does not require the acquisition of new base station sites.
Cellular traffic
the mobile cellular network aspect of teletraffic measurements. Mobile radio networks have traffic issues that do not arise in connection with the fixed line PSTN. Important aspects of cellular traffic include: quality of service targets, traffic capacity and cell size, spectral efficiency and sectorization, traffic capacity versus coverage, and channel holding time analysis. Teletraffic engineering in telecommunications network planning ensures that network costs are minimised without compromising the quality of service (QoS) delivered to the user of the network. This field of engineering is based on probability theory and can be used to analyse mobile radio networks, as well as other telecommunications networks. A mobile handset which is moving in a cell will record a signal strength that varies. Signal strength is subject to slow fading, fast fading and interference from other signals, resulting in degradation of the carrier-to-interference ratio (C/I). A high C/I ratio yields quality communication. A good C/I ratio is achieved in cellular systems by using optimum power levels through the power control of most links. When carrier power is too high, excessive interference is created, degrading the C/I ratio for other traffic and reducing the traffic capacity of the radio subsystem. When carrier power is too low, C/I is too low and QoS targets are not met.
Arrival Rate
The arrival rate is expressed in the average number of arrivals during a unit of time.
The distribution of the number of arrivals in a time interval of t,t+T is independent of starting time t. The probability of n other arrivals, in addition to a given "test" arrival that is known to be present is exactly the same as the probability of n arrivals without any a priori assumptions. The test arrival has no influence on other arrivals. This property is used, for instance, in the calculation of the throughput of random-access schemes, such as slotted ALOHA, in radio networks with capture. The probability of no arrivals during period of duration T is
f(T) = exp{T}
where f ( ) is the probability density function of the duration between two arrivals. Thus, interarrival times have a negative exponential distribution with mean 1/ .
Applications
The Poisson process is used to model the arrival of new telephone calls message arrivals in packet-data network