Wireless Channel Models

Signal Losses due to three Effects:

2. Medium Scale
Fading: due to
shadowing and
obstacles

1. Large Scale
Fading: due to
distance

3. Small Scale
Fading: due to
multipath

Wireless Channel
Frequencies of Interest: in the UHF (.3GHz 3GHz) and SHF (3GHz 30 GHz)
bands;
Several Effects:
Path Loss due to dissipation of energy: it depends on distance only
Shadowing due to obstacles such as buildings, trees, walls. Is caused by
absorption, reflection, scattering
Self-Interference due to Multipath.

Prec
10 log10
Ptransm

log10 distance

1.1. Large Scale Fading: Free Space

Path Loss due to Free Space Propagation:
For isotropic antennas:
Transmit
antenna

Prec
Ptransm
4 d
c
wavelength
F
2

Receive
antenna

Path Loss in dB:

Ptransm
L 10log10
20log10 ( F ( MHz )) 20log10 ( d ( km )) 32.45
Prec

2. Medium Scale Fading: Losses due to Buildings, Trees,

Hills, Walls

The Power Loss in dB is random:

L p E L p
expected value

random, zero mean

approximately gaussian with

6 12 dB

Average Loss
Free space loss at reference
distance

d
E{L p } 10 log10 L0
d0

dB

Reference distance

Path loss
exponent

E Lp L0

indoor 1-10m
outdoor 10-100m

10

20dB
102

101 100 10

log10 (d / d 0 )

Values for Exponent

Free Space

Urban

2.7-3.5

Indoors (LOS)

1.6-1.8

Indoors(NLOS)

4-6

Empirical Models for Propagation Losses to Environment

Okumura: urban macrocells 1-100km, frequencies 0.15-1.5GHz,

BS antenna 30-100m high;

Hata: similar to Okumura, but simplified
COST 231: Hata model extended by European study to 2GHz

Hata Model

3. Small Scale Fading due to Multipath.

a. Spreading in Time: different paths have different lengths;

Receive

Transmit
x (t ) (t t0 )

t0

y (t ) hk (t t0 k ) ...

t0

time

Example for 100m path difference we have a time delay

100
102
1

3 sec
8
c
3 10

1 2

Typical values channel time spread:

x (t ) (t t0 )

t0

channel

Indoor

10 50 n sec

Suburbs
Urban
Hilly

2 101 2 sec
1 3 sec
3-10 sec

t0

1 2 MAX

b. Spreading in Frequency: motion causes frequency shift (Doppler)

x(t ) X T e j 2 Fct

Receive

Transmit

y (t ) YR e

j 2 Fc F t

time

v
for each path

Doppler Shift

f c Fc F Frequency (Hz)

time

Put everything together

Transmit

x(t )

time

time

Receive

y (t )

channel

x(t )

w(t )
y (t )

gT (t )

h(t )

Re{.}

g R (t )

LPF

LPF

e j 2FC t
Each path has

e j 2FC t
attenuation

shift in time

y (t ) Re a (t ) x(t )e j 2 ( Fc F )(t )

paths

shift in frequency
(this causes small scale time variations)

Time-varying impulse response

Rayleigh fading

Parameters of Mobile Multipath

Channels

Time dispersion parameters

Coherence bandwidth
Doppler spread and coherence time

Time Dispersion Parameters

Time dispersion parameters
mean excess delay
RMS delay spread
excess delay spread

Mean excess delay

2
a
k k
k

P( )

P( )
k

2
k

RMS delay spread

2 ( 2 )
where

2 2
a
k k
k

a
k

2
k

2
P
(

k k
k

P(
k

Coherent Bandwidth
Coherent bandwidth, Bc , is a statistic measure of the range
of frequencies over which the channel can be considered to
be flat.
Two sinusoids with frequency separation greater than Bc
are affected quite differently by the channel.
If the coherent bandwidth is defined as the bandwidth over
which the frequency correlation function is above 0.9, then
the coherent bandwidth is approximately

1
Bc
50

If the frequency correlation function is above 0.5

Bc

1
5

Doppler Spread and Coherent

Time
Doppler spread and coherent time are parameters which
describe the time varying nature of the channel in a smallscale region.
When a pure sinusoidal tone of f c is transmitted, the
received signal spectrum, called the Doppler spectrum, will
have components in the range f c f d and f c f d , where f d
is the Doppler shift.
C hannel
fc

fc fd

fc

fc fd

f d is a function of the relative velocity of the mobile, and

the angle between the direction of motion of the mobile
and direction of arrival of the scattered waves

 Coherent time TC is the time domain dual of Doppler

spread.
Coherent time is used to characterize the time varying
nature of the frequency dispersiveness of the channel in
1
the time domain.
T
C

fm
f m : maximum Doppler shift given by f m v /

v : speed of the mobile

: speed of the light

Two signals arriving with a time separation greater than TC

are affected differently by the channel
A statistic measure of the time duration over which the
channel impulse response is essentially invariant.
If the coherent time is defined as the time over which the
time corrleation function is above 0.5, then

TC

9
16f m

Summary of Time/Frequency spread of the channel

Frequency Spread
Time
Coherence

TC

9
16 FD

S (t , F )

FD
t Time Spread

mean

RMS
Frequency
Coherence

1
Bc
5 RMS

Types of Small-Scale Fading

Multipath delay spread leads to time dispersion and
frequency selective fading.
Doppler spread leads to frequency dispersion and time
selective fading.
Multipath delay spread and Doppler spread are independent
of one another.

Flat-fading (non-freq. Selective)

Frequency selective fading