Term Paper on Digital Communication System
PRAVEEN
Roll No.: 40
B.Tech MBA ECE Integrated
Topic: Channel Fading and Channel Equalization
Abstract:
The topic of term paper is channel fading
and channel equalization. Fading is
deviation or the attenuation that a carrier
modulated telecommunication signal
experience over certain propagation media.
The fading may vary with time,
geographical position and/or radio
frequency, and is often modeled as a
random process. A fading channel is a
communication channel that experiences
fading. In wireless systems, fading might
either be due to multipath propagation,
referred to as multipath induced fading, or
due to shadowing from obstacles affecting
the wave propagation, sometimes referred
to as shadow fading.
To overcome the distortive channel effects,
or in other words, invert the FIR filter (time
or time varying) representing the channel, a
so called equalizer is needed. It means to
reduce the effect the channel fading we have
to use the channel equalization. So that
effect can be counterbalanced and the
distortion that occur due to channel
irregularities can be reduced to such an
extent that the output we want at the
receiver end is free of any type of distortion.
And the information we
receive at the receiver end is same
(approximately) as transmitting end.
Introduction:
1) Channel Fading:
The presence of reflectors in the
environment surrounding a transmitter and
receiver create multiple paths that a
transmitted signal can traverse. As a result,
the receiver sees the superposition of
multiple copies of the transmitted signal,
each traversing a different path. Each signal
copy will experience differences in
attenuation, delay and phase shift while
travelling from the source to the receiver.
This can result in either constructive or
destructive interference, amplifying or
attenuating the signal power seen at the
receiver. Strong destructive interference is
frequently referred to as a deep fade and
may result in temporary failure of
communication due to a severe drop in the
channel signal-to-noise ratio.
A common example of multipath fading is
the experience of stopping at a traffic light
and hearing an FM broadcast degenerate
into static, while the signal is re-acquired if
the vehicle moves only a fraction of a meter.
The loss of the broadcast is caused by the
vehicle stopping at a point where the signal
experienced severe destructive interference.
Cellular phones can also exhibit similar
momentary fades.
The most fundamental and unique
characteristic of wireless channels is the
random time-variation of the channel
strengths. Communication over fading
channels has been a topic of study since the
'60s. A very different view of the problem,
however, emerges from recent research. The
traditional view of fading is that it is a
source of unreliability that has to be
compensated for by various diversity and
power control techniques. The modern view
considers fading as a source of
randomization that can be exploited to get
significant capacity boost, even beyond that
of a non-faded channel. Two prime
examples are:
Opportunistic Communication. Dynamic
rate and power allocation can be performed
over the dimensions of time, frequency,
antennas, and users in a wireless system. In
a fading environment, the channel will be
strong sometime, somewhere, and
opportunistic schemes can choose to
transmit in only those channel states.
Multi-antenna Communication. In systems
with multiple transmit and multiple receive
antennas, random fading increases the
number of degrees of freedom available for
communication by ensuring that the channel
matrix is well conditioned. The phenomenon
is also called spatial multiplexing.
We propose to look at two sets of problems
in the context of this modern view of fading:
Channel Uncertainty in Opportunistic
Communication. The fundamental
bottleneck limiting performance of
opportunistic communication schemes is the
channel uncertainty at the transmitter due to
variations in the channel and delayed
feedback. The main question is how best to
perform opportunistic communication in
face of such channel uncertainty. Building
on the experience of implementing these
ideas in Qualcomm's HDR system, some
specific problems we propose are: Analysis
of the capacity of multi-user fading channels
with noisy delayed feedback
> The problem of optimal channel probing
for the strong channel states using a limited
amount of power
> Performance scaling of opportunistic
schemes in wideband systems with many
users
> TDD (time-division duplex) versus FDD
(frequency-division duplex) systems in the
role of reducing noise and delay in the
feedback. Diversity versus Spatial
Multiplexing in Multi-Antenna Systems.
While fading provides the potential for
spatial multiplexing gain, many of the
existing coding schemes are designed
instead to maximize the diversity advantage,
a traditional notion framework. We put forth
the viewpoint that there is a fundamental
trade-off between diversity advantage and
spatial multiplex gain. We propose to
analyze this trade-off and design schemes
that can perform close to this optimal trade-
off over a wide range. One also can view
this trade-off as that between the traditional
use and the modern use of multiple
antennas.
Fading channel models are often used to
model the effects of electromagnetic
transmission of information over the air in
cellular networks and broadcast
communication. Fading channel models are
also used in underwater acoustic
communications to model the distortion
caused by the water. Mathematically, fading
is usually modeled as a time-varying random
change in the amplitude and phase of the
transmitted signal.
Frequency-selective time-varying fading
causes a cloudy pattern to appear on a
spectrogram. Time is shown on the
horizontal axis, frequency on the vertical
axis and signal strength as grey-scale
intensity
Basic Concept of channel fading:
The basic concept behind the channel
fading: In the presence of reflectors in the
environment surrounding a transmitter and
receiver create multiple paths that a
transmitted signal can traverse. Thus, the
receiver sees the superposition of multiple
copies of the transmitted signal, each
traversing a different path. Every signal
copy will experience differences in
attenuation, delay and phase shift while
travelling from the source to the receiver.
This can result in either constructive or
destructive interference, amplifying or
attenuating the signal power seen at the
receiver. Strong destructive interference is
frequently referred to as a deep fade and
may result in temporary failure of
communication due to a severe drop in the
channel signal-to-noise ratio.
A simple example of multipath fading is the
experience of stopping at a traffic light and
hearing an FM broadcast degenerate into
static, while the signal is re-acquired if the
vehicle moves only a fraction of a meter.
The loss of the broadcast is caused by the
vehicle stopping at a point where the signal
experienced severe destructive interference.
Cellular phones can also exhibit similar
momentary fades.
Fading channel models are often used to
model the effects of electromagnetic
transmission of information over the air in
cellular networks and broadcast
communication. Fading channel models are
also used in underwater acoustic
communications to model the distortion
caused by the water. Mathematically, fading
is usually modeled as a time-varying random
change in the amplitude and phase of the
transmitted signal.
The phase and magnitude of channel change
in two ways slow fading and fast fading.
The terms slow and fast fading refer to the
rate at which the magnitude and phase
change imposed by the channel on the signal
changes. The coherence time is a measure of
the minimum time required for the
magnitude change of the channel to become
uncorrelated from its previous value.
Slow fading arises when the coherence time
of the channel is large relative to the delay
constraint of the channel. In this regime, the
amplitude and phase change imposed by the,
channel can be considered roughly constant
over the period of use. Slow fading can be
caused by events such as shadowing, where
a large obstruction such as a hill or large
building obscures the main signal path
between the transmitter and the receiver.
The amplitude change caused by shadowing
is often modeled using a log-normal
distribution with a standard deviation
according to the log-distance path loss
model.
Fast fading occurs when the coherence time of
the channel is small relative to the delay
constraint of the channel. In this regime, the
amplitude and phase change imposed by the
channel varies considerably over the period of
use.
The fast-fading channel, the transmitter may
take advantage of the variations in the
channel conditions using time diversity to
help increase robustness of the
communication to a temporary deep fade.
Although a deep fade may temporarily erase
some of the information transmitted, use of
an error-correcting code coupled with
successfully transmitted bits during other
time instances (interleaving) can allow for
the erased bits to be recovered. In a slow-
fading channel, it is not possible to use time
diversity because the transmitter sees only a
single realization of the channel within its
delay constraint. A deep fade therefore lasts
the entire duration of transmission and
cannot be mitigated using coding.
A coherence time of the channel is related to
a quantity known as the Doppler spread of
the channel. When a user (or reflectors in its
environment) is moving, the user's velocity
causes a shift in the frequency of the signal
transmitted along each signal path. This
phenomenon is known as the Doppler shift.
Signals travelling along different paths can
have different Doppler shifts, corresponding
to different rates of change in phase. The
difference in Doppler shifts between
different signal components contributing to
a single fading channel tap is known as the
Doppler spread. Channels with a large
Doppler spread have signal components that
are each changing independently in phase
over time. Since fading depends on whether
signal components add constructively or
destructively, such channels have a very
short coherence time.
Flat versus frequency-selective
fading
As the carrier frequency of a signal is
varied, the magnitude of the change in
amplitude will vary. The coherence
bandwidth measures the separation in
frequency after which two signals will
experience uncorrelated fading.
In flat fading, the coherence bandwidth of the
channel is larger than the bandwidth of the
signal. Therefore, all frequency components of
the signal will experience the same magnitude of
fading.
In frequency-selective fading, the coherence
bandwidth of the channel is smaller than the
bandwidth of the signal. Different frequency
components of the signal therefore experience
de-correlated fading.
Since different frequency components of the
signal are affected independently, it is
highly unlikely that all parts of the signal
will be simultaneously affected by a deep
fade. Certain modulation schemes such as
OFDM and CDMA are well-suited to
employing frequency diversity to provide
robustness to fading. OFDM divides the
wideband signal into many slowly
modulated narrowband subcarriers, each
exposed to flat fading rather than frequency
selective fading. This can be combated by
means of error coding, simple equalization
or adaptive bit loading. Inter-symbol
interference is avoided by introducing a
guard interval between the symbols. CDMA
uses the Rake receiver to deal with each
echo separately.
Frequency-selective fading channels are also
dispersive, in that the signal energy
associated with each symbol is spread out in
time. This causes transmitted symbols that
are adjacent in time to interfere with each
other. Equalizers are often deployed in such
channels to compensate for the effects of the
inter symbol interference.
The echoes may also be exposed to Doppler
shift, resulting in a time varying channel
model.
Fading models
Examples of fading models for the
distribution of the attenuation are:
1. Nakagami fading
2. Weibull fading
3. Rayleigh fading
4. Rician fading
5. Dispersive fading models, with several
echoes, each exposed to different delay,
gain and phase shift, often constant.
This results in frequency selective
fading and inter-symbol interference.
The gains may be Rayleigh or Rician
distributed. The echoes may also be
exposed to Doppler shift, resulting in a
time varying channel model.
6. Log-normal shadow fading
Lessening in severity
Fading can cause poor performance in a
communication system because it can result
in a loss of signal power without reducing
the power of the noise. This signal loss can
be over some or all of the signal bandwidth.
Fading can also be a problem as it changes
over time: communication systems are often
designed to adapt to such impairments, but
the fading can change faster than the
adaptations can be made. In such cases, the
probability of experiencing a fade (and
associated bit errors as the signal-to-noise
ratio drops) on the channel becomes the
limiting factor in the link's performance.
The effects of fading can be combated by
using diversity to transmit the signal over
multiple channels that experience
independent fading and coherently
combining them at the receiver. The
probability of experiencing a fade in this
composite channel is then proportional to
the probability that all the component
channels simultaneously experience a fade, a
much more unlikely event.
Diversity can be achieved in time,
frequency, or space. Common techniques
used to overcome signal fading include:
 Diversity reception and transmission
 OFDM
 Rake receivers
 Space–time codes
 MIMO
Example explanation of fading:
Using Multipath Reception:
Experiments with mobile communication
were done at VHF frequencies, near 50
MHz, already in the 1920s. Results of these
tests revealed a very hostile propagation
environment, particularly in urban centers.
The signal quality varied from "excellent" to
"no signal". Moving the vehicle over a few
meters resulted in dramatic changes of the
received field strength.
The mobile or indoor radio channel is
characterized by 'multipath reception': The
signal offered to the receiver contains not
only a direct line-of-sight radio wave, but
also a large number of reflected radio waves.
Even worse in urban centre’s, the line-of-
sight is often blocked by obstacles, and a
collected of differently delayed waves is all
what is received by a mobile antenna. These
reflected waves interfere with the direct
wave, which causes significant degradation
of the performance of the link. If the antenna
moves the channel varies with location and
time, because the relative phases of the
reflected waves change. This leads to
fading: time variations of the received
amplitude and phase.
In a non-fading (thus fixed) radio channel
the BER decreases rapidly when the signal-
to-noise (or signal-to-interference) ratio is
increased. In a fading channel, every now
and then the received signal is very weak
and many bit errors occur. This phenomenon
remains present, even if the (average)
signal-to-noise ratio is large. So the BER
only improves very slowly, and with a fixed
slope, if plotted on a log-log scale.
(Diversity or error correction can help to
make the slope steeper, hence improve
performance.)
A wireless system has to be designed in such
way that the adverse effect of multipath
fading is minimized. In the past, multipath
has notoriously hindered the development of
reliable and inexpensive mass-product
systems. A better understanding of these
phenomena and the advent of powerful
signal processing techniques contributed to

the explosion of digital wireless
communication since the 1980s.
The basic model of Rayleigh fading
assumes a received multipath signal to
consist of a (theoretically infinitely) large
number of reflected waves with independent
and identically distributed in phase and
quadrature amplitudes. This model has
played a major role in our understanding of
mobile propagation. The model was first
proposed in a comment paper written by
Lord Rayleigh in 1889, describing the
resulting signal if many violinists in an
orchestra play in unison, long before its
application to mobile radio reception was
recognized.
More recently, this model of many randomly
phased sinusoids appeared to appropriately
describe the wireless radio channel, and to
allow calculation of outage probabilities,
fade durations and many other critical
parameters of wireless links. It greatly
facilitated the development systems that can
reliably communicate despite the anomalies
and unpredictability of the mobile
communication channel. As the demand for
mobile communication increases, systems
have to be more efficient and cell sizes are
chosen smaller and smaller. To describe
microcellular propagation, the Rayleigh
model lacked the effect of a dominant line-
of-sight component, and Rician model
appeared to be more appropriate.
Most conventional digital modulation
techniques are sensitive to inter symbol
interference unless the channel symbol rate
is small compared to the delay spread of the
channel. On the other hand a narrowband
signal with bit durations much longer than
the delay spread may vanish completely in
fade. A signal received at a frequency and
location where reflected waves cancel each
other, is heavily attenuated and may thus
suffer large bit error rates.
2) Channel Equalization:
To combat the distortive channel effects, or
in other words, invert the FIR filter (time or
time varying) representing the channel, a so
called equalizer is needed. In a
communication system, the transmitter
sends the information over an RF channel.
On passing through the channel, the signal
gets distorted before actually it gets received
at the receiver end. Hence, it is the receiver
”task” is to figure out what signal was
transmitted and turn the received signal in
understandable information. Channel
equalization is an important process to get
back the original information that we want
to communicate. Because between the
information travelling in channel the
distortion occur in the information and if we
do not remove that, then some or all
information which is encoded will be lost
and thus if the information lost which is not
desired. So in order to obtain the same
information we need channel equalization.
The purpose of an equalizer is to reduce the
ISI as much as possible to maximize the
probability of correct decisions.
Inter symbol Interference all-purpose
So if we able to remove the noise and inter
symbol interference then we can obtain the
desired signal.
There are following type of equalization:
2.1) Linear equalization:
A linear equalizer is a filter that can undo
the channel effect
Ideally, the output of an equalizer is a
delayed version of the transmitted signal
• A fixed equalizer measures the time-
invarient channel and compensates the
frequency selectivity during the entire
transmission of data
• An adaptive equalizer adjusts its
coefficients to track a slowly time-varying
channel
Mathematically, the output of anN-tap
equalizer {g0k, · · · , gNk} is given by
Where rk is the received signal and ko here
introduces a delay in causal system.
• For fixed equalizers, gnk = gn (i.e., its
coefficients do not change with time k).
• For adaptive equalizers, gnk is updated
periodically based on the current channel
characteristics.
• The equalizer coefficients can be
determined from the channel response, the
training sequence, or the data sequence
directly
A) Zero-forcing: In zero-forcing
equalization, the equalizer {gk} attempts to
completely inverse the channel by forcing ck
∗ gk = δ(k − k0)
Using matrix representation, this is
equivalent to
Or
Cg = 1
While it is not always possible to find the
perfect solution to the above equation, one
can approximate it with g = C†1, where †
denotes the pseudo-inverse (pinv in Matlab)
of a matrix.
B) Mean-Square Error equalizer: Such
type of equlaizers attempt to minimize the
total error between the slicer input and the
transmitted data symbol.
2.2) Decision-feedback equalization:
• Since the training sequence carries no data
information, it incurs an overhead to
wireless communications, especially in
mobile applications where the equalizer
coefficients need to be
updated frequently.
• Notice that sk−ko can be either the pilot
symbol or the feedback from a data symbol
decision. A decision-feedback equalizer
(DFE) is a nonlinear equalizer that employs
previous decisions as training sequences.
• The detected symbols (or the output of the
feedback filter) is subtracted from the output
of the equalizer for adaptation
• While better in performance in general, a
major drawback of DFE is its potential
catastrophic behaviour due to error
propagation
• In practical, DFE is often combined with
training sequence based equalization for
robustness
It is a simple nonlinear equalizer which is
particularly useful for channel with severe
amplitude distortion. It uses decision
feedback to cancel the interference from
symbols which have already have been
detected. The basic idea is that if the values
of the symbols already detected are known
(past decisions are assumed correct), then
the ISI contributed by these symbols can be
cancelled exactly.
In a Decision Feedback Equalizer
Architecture, forward and feedback
coefficients may be adjusted simultaneously
to minimize the mean square error.
There are two modes that adaptive
equalizers work;
a) Decision Directed Mode: The receiver
decisions are used to generate the error
signal
Decision directed equalizer adjustment is
effective in tracking slow variation in the
channel response. However, this approach is
not effective during initial acquisition .
b) Training Mode: To make equalizer
suitable in the initial acqusition duration, a
training
signal is needed. In this mode of operation,
the transmitter generates a data symbol
sequence known to the receiver.
Once an agreed time has elapsed, the slicer
output is actual data transmission begins.
2.4 Software Design and
Implementation Flow

2.3) Adaptive Equalizers

This type of equlaizers adapt the coefficients
to minimize the noise and intersymbol
interference (depending on the equalizer) at
the output
 1) Digital Signal Processing – Sanjit Mitra
2) Digital Signal Processing – Sanjay
Sharma
3) Channel Equalization Techniques by
Fernando Gregorio

Sites:
1) Wikipedia
2) Sprinling

References:

Books: