WIRELESS

COMMUNICATIONS
Carlos Pupiales Y.
chpupiales@utn.edu.ec
Outline:
• Propagation Properties
• Polarization
• Mechanism of Propagation
• Error Compensation
• Propagation Models
• Budget Link
• Examples

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Introduction

• A wireless signal has several challenges to overcome due to path

loss, shadowing, lack of spectrum, noise, and other factors.

Earth shape
Atmosphere
phenomena
Buildings
People
Cars

Source: Wireless Communications, Goldsmith

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Propagation Properties

• Electric and magnetic field are perpendicular to each other and to the
direction of the propagation.
• The interaction between E and H stores energy which can be carried along
the poynting vector.

Source: Antennas and Propagation for Wireless Communications Systems, Saunders

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Polarization
• The polarization of a wave is defined by the alignment of electric field .
• E parallel to “x” axis, then vertically polarized.
• E parallel to “y” axis, then horizontally polarized.
• If two waves with orthogonal polarization and the same amplitude are
combined with 90° phase separation, the result is circular polarization.
• When two waves with orthogonal polarization have either different
amplitude or phase separation (≠90°), elliptical polarization is created.
• Circular and Elliptical polarization are commonly used in satellite
communications with a combination of antennas

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Polarization (2)

Source: Antennas and Propagation for Wireless Communications Systems, Saunders

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Propagation Mechanism
• Electromagnetic waves travel to their destiny using different paths.
• The signal in the receptor is the sum of many signals which come from an
unique source.

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Propagation Mechanism (2)
• Reflection:
• When the reflected wave has the same angle of the incident wave.
• In the reflection some energy is lost by either absorption or the signal pass
into the medium.
• Water provides good reflection for radio signals. On the other hand, desert
areas have poor reflection.

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Propagation Mechanism (3)
• Refraction:

• The electromagnetic wave changes its

direction when it passes from one
environment to another one.

• The speed of the waves may be affected as

well.

• The refractions depends on the frequency.

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Propagation Mechanism (4)
• Diffraction:
• The waves tend to “bend” in the
corner of an object.
• It happens when the wavelength is
larger than the object size.
• It slows down the speed of the
wave and change its direction.

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Propagation Mechanism (5)
• Multipath:

• Multiple copies of the transmitted signal arrives to the receiver using

different paths.

• These copies arrive with different phase, amplitude, and time.

• Multipath creates constructive and destructive interference.

• It also generates Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI).

• Doppler Shift:

• Change in frequency of a signal whose transmitter is moving forward or

backward to the receiver.

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Propagation Mechanism (6)
• Doppler Shift:

Doppler Shift

Phase change in Rx
Source: Adaptive equalization and receiver diversity for indoor
wireless data communications

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Propagation Mechanism (7)

Source: Antennas and Propagation for Wireless

Communications Systems, Saunders

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Fading
• Fading refers to the time variation of received signal power caused by changes in
transmission medium or path.
• In a fixed environment, fading is caused by changes in atmospheric conditions like
rainfall.
• In a mobile environment, fading is caused by obstacles found in the path due to the
change of location of receiver and/or transmitter. These obstacles change over time and
create complex transmission effects.

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Fading: Small-scale Fading
• Rapid changes in signal strength over short periods of time or distance.

• It’s caused by interference between two or more versions of the transmitted signal
which arrive at the receiver at different times.

• This interference can vary in amplitud or phase over time.

• Results from multiple versions of the transmitted signal arriving at the receiver due to
multipath, reflection, diffraction, etc.

• Received signal consists of a large number of plane waves having randomly distributed
amplitudes, phases, and angles of arrival.

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Fading: Small-scale Fading
• The most important effects are:

• Rapid changes in signal strength over a small travel distance or time interval.

• Random frequency modulation due to varying Dopppler shifts.

• Time dispersions (echo) caused by multipath propagation delays.

• Factors influencing small-scale fading:

• Multipath propagation: the presence of reflecting objects and scatters in the channel
creates a constantly changing environment that may cause ISI.

• Speed of mobile: relative motion between Tx and Rx results in random frequency

modulation due to different Doppler shifts on each multipath component.

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Fading: Small-scale Fading
• Factors influencing small-scale fading:

• Speed of surrounding objects: if the objects in the radio channel are in motion, they
induce a time varying Doppler shift on multipath components.

• Transmission bandwidth of the signal: if the Tx BW is greater than the BW of the

multipath channel, the received signal will be distorted, but the received signal
strength won´t fade much.

• If Tx signal has a narrow bandwidth compated to the channel, the amplitude of the
signal will change rapidly, but the signal won´t be distorted in time.

• Coherence bandwidth: is a measure of the maximum frequency difference for which

signals are still strongly correlated in amplitud.
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Fading: Large-scale fading
• Large-scale Fading:
• Variation in signal strength due to large objects found in the path of the signal.
• This interference causes significant reduction in signal strength because the wave is
shadowed or blocked by the obstacle.
• It’s caused by path loss and shadowing, which are affected only by a movement of
comperatively large distance.
• Shadowing: The diminish in signal strength due to the obstruction caused by large
obstacles.
• Path Loss: it’s how de signal strength decays as it propagates through the wireless cannel
being the critical factor de distance between Tx and Rx.
• Free-space model, Two-ray model, and simplified path-loss model

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Fading

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Inter-symbol Interference (ISI)
• It’s the interference caused by the spread out the pulse in time due to
multipath propagation.
• Successive pulses interfere to each other.
• The signal in the receiver is the sum of all multipath signals.
• It causes low data rates, inefficient use of the BW.
• It can be solved with techniques such as slowing down the data rate, with
FEC, diversity, and equalization.
• Please watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-ZeorOjQn8

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Inter-symbol Interference (ISI)

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Error Compensation
• Due to signal suffers degradation along its path way, it’s necessary to
compensate those losses in the receiver to avoid retransmissions.

• Forward Error Correction (FEC): It’s a method which adds redundancy in

the transmitter so that the receiver can detect errors and corrected them.

• Adaptive Equalization: Equalizers are used to compensate the time

dispersion introduced in the signals by noise, interference (ISI), and
attenuation caused in the transmission path.

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Error Compensation (2)
• Adaptive equalizers track the channel
characteristics in order to compensate
the time variation.

• At time “0”, the equalizer needs an

initial training period in order it can
learn the correct transmitted
sequence and then generate
appropriate coefficients to
Source: Antennas and Propagation for Wireless

compensate the errors.

Communications Systems, Saunders

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Error Compensation (3)
• Diversity: It’s a set of techniques used to compensate the errors due to
multi-path propagation and fading. Here we have time diversity, frequency
diversity, and spatial diversity.

• Time Diversity: Signals received at different time are uncorrelated. To solve

this we can use techniques such as:

• Repetition coding: Retransmit always the entire data.

• Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ): Retransmit only the missed data.

• Interleaving and coding: Transmit the data using FEC with interleaving.

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Error Compensation (4)
• Frequency Diversity: The same signal is transmitted at two or more different
frequencies. As this reduce the spectral efficiency, the information is spread out
over the entire bandwidth.

• TDMA

• CDMA

• Multi Carrier CDMA

• Frequency hopping with coding

• The negative fact is that BER increases

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Error Compensation (5)
• Spatial Diversity: The transmitted signal is received at multiple antennas,
then they are combined to be processed.

• It’s used to reduce the effect of shadow fading

• Very useful in cellular networks.

• Effective if it allows handover.

• Macro Diversity: Use 2 or more receivers.

• Micro Diversity: Use 2 or more antennas in the same receiver (MIMO)

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Propagation Models: Path Loss
• It’s the loss of energy of the transmitted signal which travels from A to B.

• It depends on the distance, power, and objects found between A and B.

Source: Wireless Communications, Goldsmith

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Propagation Models: Path Loss
• Considering a transmission in free space without obstructions between Tx
and Rx.
• It’s used to predict Pr when we have a line-of-sight between A and B.

• Friis Free Space equation

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Propagation Models: Path Loss

P’ t = EIRP

Pr = Receiver Power Gt = Antenna Gain Transmitter

Pt = Transmitted Power Gr = Anetenna Gain Receiver
Lp = Path Loss

Receiver Power = Gain - Losses

Antenna Gain is expressed with reference to an isotropic antenna and it’s measured in dBd.
0 dBd = 2.15 dBi
The Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP) is found using:

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Propagation Models: Path Loss
• Free Space Loss:
• From Friis equation, we got:

A: rain
B: Fog
C: Gas

Note:
Distance in Km
Frequency in MHz
Source: Aznar, Á. C., et al. (2004). Antenas, Universitat Politecnica
de Catalunya. Iniciativa Digital Politecnica.

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Additional info
• Receiver Sensitivity: It’s the minimum level of signal the receiver can detect. It
depends on:
• Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) or Eb/No
• Thermal Noise Density (kT)
• K= Boltsmann constant (〖1.38𝑥10〗^(−23) 𝑗𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑒/°𝐾)
• T= Temperature (°K)
• Bandwidth or bit rate (BW or bit rate)
• Receiver Noise Figure (NF)

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Propagation Models: Two Ray Model
• In a typical indoor and outdoor environment, at least one direct ray and one
reflected ray will exist.

• It’s used when ground reflection dominates the multipath effect.

• In practice, loss is almost never independent of frequency.

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Propagation Models: Two Ray Model

• Where Ga and Gb are the field radiation patterns of LOS between Rx and Tx.

• Gl is equal to Ga*Gb

ℎ𝑟2 ℎ𝑡2
𝑃𝑟 = 𝑃𝑡 𝐺𝑡 𝐺𝑟 4
𝑑

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Propagation Models: Hata Model
• It’s an empirical model developed by Okumura in 1968.

• Mainly used in cellular networks.

• Valid for frequencies from 150 MHz to 1500 MHz.

Urban:

Source: Dr. Paul Fitzpatrick

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Propagation Models: Hata Model
• Suburban:

• Rural – Quasi – Open:

• Rural – Open Area:

The equations are valid for:

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Propagation Models: PSC
• It’s the extension to the Hata Model

• Valid for frequencies from 1500 to 2000 MHz (PCS band).

• It’s also called COST – 231 extension to Hata Model.

Urban

Source: Dr. Paul Fitzpatrick

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Propagation Models: PSC
• Suburban:

• Rural – Quasi – Open:

• Rural – Open Area:

The equations are valid for:

1500 ≤ f ≤ 2000 MHz, 30 ≤hBS , ≤ 200m, 1≤ hmobile, ≤10 m, 1≤ d ≤ 20 km

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Link Budget
𝑀𝑎𝑥𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑚 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝐿𝑜𝑠𝑠 = 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝐿𝑜𝑠𝑠 + 𝐹𝑎𝑑𝑒 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑖𝑛

• Predicted Loss comes from the Free Space Loss analysis.

• Fade Margin gives resilience against practical fading.

• R: Reliability of the system (E.g. 99.99 %)

• B: Weather factor
• A: Roughness factor
- 0.5 hot and wet zones.
• 4 if the terrain is flat or water.
- 1 average zones
• 1 average terrain.
- 0.125 dry and mountainous zones
• 0.25 rough terrain.

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Fresnel Zones

• Earth isn’t flat and there are many obstructions such as mountains, buildings,
and trees.
• To guarantee a radio link isn´t obstructed, the 1er Fresnel zone must be cleared
at least at 60%.
• The Fresnel zone is a region inside the direct ray where electromagnetic waves
can be reflected when travel from A to B.

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Fresnel Zones (2)

Source: S. Saunders, A. Aragon,

Antennas and Propagation for
Wireless Communications System

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Terrestrial Links

• The refractive index of the Earth’s atmosphere (1.0003) is slightly larger than the
free space value of 1.
• The atmospheric refractivity is expressed in parts per million and is N=Ns≈300N
units. N varies with temperature, pressure, and water vapor pressure of the
atmosphere.

Snell Law
𝑆𝑖𝑛 𝜃1 𝑛1
• =
𝑆𝑖𝑛 𝜃2 𝑛2 Source: S. Saunders, A. Aragon,
Antennas and Propagation for
Wireless Communications System

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Terrestrial Links (2)

Source: S. Saunders, A. Aragon,

Antennas and Propagation for
Wireless Communications System

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Examples

• Transmitted Power = 10 W, Antenna Gain = 17dBd. Find the EIRP

• A receiver in a digital mobile communication system has a noise bandwidth of 200

KHz and requires that its input SNR should be at least 10 dB when the input signal is -
104dBm . What is the maximum permitted value of the receiver noise figure?.

• A satellite is operated at C-band (6GHz -up/4GHz-down) for video broadcasting.

Calculate the free space loss experienced at this frequency if the satellite is in
geostationary orbit, located at 36000 Km above ground level. What is the minimum
EIRP needed to provide adequate reception, assuming a receiver sensitivity of -
120dBm and effective antenna gain of 20dbi?

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Examples
• A one-way microwave link operating at 10 GHz has these parameters: Transmitter power: 13 dBw,
Transmitter feeder loss: 5 dB, Transmitter antenna gain: 18 dBd, Receiver antenna gain: 10 dBi, Receiver
feeder loss: 3 dB, Receiver Noise Bandwidth: 500 KHz, Receiver Noise Figure 3 dB.

• The receiver operates satisfactorily when the signal-to-noise ratio at its input is at least 10 dB. Calculate
the maximum acceptable path loss.

• A base station transmits a power of 10W into a feeder cable with a loss of 10 dB. The transmit antenna has a
gain of 12 dBd in the direction of a mobile receiver, with antenna gain 0 dBd and feeder loss 2 dB. The
mobile receiver has a sensitivity of -104 dBm.

(a) Calculate the effective isotropic radiated power.

(b) Calculate the maximum acceptable path loss.

(c) Calculate the maximum range if f = 900 MHz

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You should know
• How electromagnetic waves propagate in different scenarios.
• What are the pros and cons of multi-propagation.
• What is Doppler Shift and how it affects to mobility.
• How to deal with ISI.
• The importance of space diversity to improve coverage and capacity.
• How to plan and calculate a Budget Link.

Next time: A Brief review of

antennas
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Extra Material

hc

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Extra Material (2)

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