Institute of information & Communication Technology (IICT), MUET

Institute of Information & Communication Technologies (I

2
CT)
Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, Jamshoro, Pakistan

ADVANCED SIMULATION TOOLS
Lab 06 Roll Number _______________

Rician Fading Channel Simulations

6.1 Performance Objectives

After this lab, you should be able to:
Acquire basic understanding of Rician Fading
Be able to generate noise signal with Rician effect.
Be able to analyze the effect of Rician Fading in Simulink

6.2 Equipment Required

PC with Windows
MATLAB 6.5 or latest with Signal Processing and Communication Toolbox

6.3 Introduction to Multipath Channel Environment

6.3.1 Rician Fading

The previous lab we simulated the multipath propagation channel without LOS and observed the BER
performance under Rayleigh fading channel for different values of Doppler shift and its affect on the
constellation diagram of the modulated signal.
In this lab, we shall simulate Rician fading, where there is a LOS component present alongside multipath
components.
Following table will help you choose realistic parameters for simulation

Path delay
By convention, the first delay is typically set to zero and corresponds
to the first arriving path
For indoor environments, path delays after the first are typically
between 1 ns and 100 ns
For outdoor environments, path delays after the first are typically
between 100 ns and 10 s

Path gain
The average path gains in the channel object indicate the average
power gain of each fading path. In practice, an average path gain value
is a large negative dB value. However, computer models typically use
average path gains between -20 dB and 0 dB


Institute of information & Communication Technology (IICT), MUET
Doppler shift Doppler shift can be found out using the speed of the mobile and the
operating frequency using relation
Fd = vf/c
where a Doppler shift of 0 corresponds to a static channel
K-factor The Rician K-factor specifies the ratio of specular-to-diffuse power for
a direct line-of-sight path. The ratio is expressed linearly, not in dB
A K-factor of 0 corresponds to Rayleigh fading

Table 6.1: Parameters for Rician channel object

6.3.2 Modeling Rician Fading in MATLAB

chan = ricianchan(ts,fd,k) constructs a frequency-flat ("single path") Rician fading channel object. ts is
the sample time of the input signal, in seconds. fd is the maximum Doppler shift, in Hertz. k is the Rician
K-factor. In this channel, the specular component has zero phase and the phase does not change with
the Doppler shift. You can model the effect of the channel on a signal x by using the syntax y =
filter(chan,x).

chan = ricianchan(ts,fd,k,tau,pdb) constructs a frequency-selective ("multiple path") fading channel
object that models the first discrete path as a Rician fading process and each of the remaining discrete
paths as an independent Rayleigh fading process. tau is a vector of path delays, each specified in
seconds. pdb is a vector of average path gains, each specified in dB.

chan = ricianchan constructs a frequency-flat channel object with no Doppler shift and a K-factor of 1.
This is a static channel. The sample time of the input signal is irrelevant for frequency-flat static
channels.

6.3.3 Quasi-static Channel Modeling

The example below illustrates the quasi-static channel modeling approach.

M = 4; % DQPSK modulation order
numBits = 10000; % Each trial uses 10000 bits.
numTrials = 20; % Number of BER computations

% Create Rician channel object.
chan = ricianchan; % Static channel
chan.KFactor = 10; % Rician K-factor

% Because chan.ResetBeforeFiltering is 1 by default,
% FILTER resets the channel in each trial below.

% Compute error rate once for each independent trial.
for n = 1:numTrials
tx = randint(numBits,1,M); % Random bit stream
dpskSig = dpskmod(tx,M); % DPSK signal
fadedSig = filter(chan, dpskSig); % Effect of channel

Institute of information & Communication Technology (IICT), MUET
rxSig = awgn(fadedSig,20); % Add Gaussian noise.
rx = dpskdemod(rxSig,M); % Demodulate.

% Compute number of symbol errors.
% Ignore first sample because of DPSK initial condition.
nErrors(n) = symerr(tx(2:end),rx(2:end))
end
per = mean(nErrors > 0) % Proportion of packets that had errors


6.3.4 Simulink Model

A wireless system is supposed to transmit data using BPSK modulation. Test the system for BER
performance and scatter plots under AWGN and Rician fading environment.



Figure 1: Simulink Model for BPSK over AWGN and Rician channel








Institute of information & Communication Technology (IICT), MUET
Review Questions

1. Define the term Doppler shift?

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2. What is the Difference between Static channel and Quasi-Static channel?
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3. What parameters you have to change to model Rayleigh channel effect with rician
block?
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4. A demonstration for this experiment was given in Simulink environment, with BPSK
under Rician and AWGN environment. Build another Simulink model with differential D-
QPSK and discuss the difference in results based on some plots.