TYPES OF SMALL SCALE

FADING BASED ON
MULTIPATH TIME DELAY SPREADING
and
DOPPLER SPREADING
 Based on Multipath
Time Delay
Spreading

Frequency Flat Fading Frequency Selective Fading

1. Bs<<Bc and Ts>>στ
2. Rayleigh and Ricean
Distribution
3. Spatial characteristics of
the transmitted signal are
preserved.
1. Bs>>Bc and Ts<<στ
2. ISI
3. Spatial characteristics of the
transmitted signal are not
preserved.
4. MCs are resolved
 Bs Bc
Bc Bs

Flat Fading Frequency Selective Fading

FLAT FADING

Occurs due to fluctuations in the gain of the multipath channel which leads to change
in amplitude of the received signal with time.

Example: Rayleigh Distribution.

Occurs when symbol period of the transmitted signal is much larger than the Delay
spread of the channel.

Bandwidth of the applied signal is narrow.

May cause deep fades.

Increase the transmitted power to gat out from deep fade.

Flat Fading Channel Characteristics
 Gaussian Shaping Balanced
noise source Filter Modulator

900 Phase
Input signal Shift
x(t)
Rayliegh
Fading
Signal
Gaussian Shaping Balanced
noise source Filter Modulator
FREQUENCY SELECTIVE FADING

Occurs when the channel multipath delay spread is grater than the symbol period.

• Symbol face time dispersion

• Channel induces ISI.

• Bandwidth of the signal is wider than the channel impulse reponse

• Cause distortion of the received baseband signal.

Frequency Selective Fading Channel Characteristics
 Tapped- Delay Line
Input Signal
Delay Line

𝑟0 (𝑡)𝑒 𝜑0 (𝑡)
𝑟0 (𝑡)𝑒 𝜑1 (𝑡) 𝑟𝑁−1 (𝑡)𝑒 𝜑0𝑁−1(𝑡)

Fading Signal Output

Receiver
Common Rule of Thumb

Flat Fading

𝑻𝒔 > 𝟏𝟎𝝈𝝉

Frequency Selective Fading

𝑻𝒔 < 𝟏𝟎𝝈𝝉
 Based on Doppler
Spread

Fast Fading Slow Fading

1. High Doppler Spread 1. Low Doppler Spread
2. Tc<Ts 2. Tc<Ts
3. Channel variations faster 3. Channel variations smaller
than baseband signal than baseband signal
variations variations
 Bs BD
BD Bs
Fast Fading Slow Fading

Fast Fading: Vehicle is moving very fast.

Slow Fading: Vehicle is moving at a slow speed
FAST FADING

Occurs due to Doppler Spread

• The rate of change of the channel characteristics is larger than the rate of
change of the transmitted signal. As a result, the channel changes during a
symbol period.

• The channel changes because of relative motion between the receiver and the
baseband signalling.

• Coherence time (Tc) of the channel is smaller than the period (Ts) of the
transmitted signal.
• Within the symbol duration channel undergoes fading and non fading regions.
SLOW FADING

Occurs due to Doppler Spread

• The rate of change of the channel characteristics is much smaller than the rate
of change of the transmitted signal.

• The channel may be assumed static over one or several reciprocal bandwidth
intervals.

• In frequency domain this means that Doppler Spread of channel is much

smaller than the bandwidth of baseband signal.

• Quasi static channel is in between fast and slow fading. It stays static within
one sample but the channel do not stay static for several samples.
PROBLEMS
Fading Distributions
Fading Distributions

Statistical characterization of the variation of the envelope of the received

signal over time.

Two most common distributions:

Rayleigh Fading

Ricean Fading
Rayleigh Fading Distribution

If all the multipath components have approximately the same amplitude (i.e., when MS
is far away from BS), the envelope of the received signal is Rayleigh Distributed.

No dominant signal component (Such as LOS component)

The Rayleigh distribution is commonly used to describe the statistical time varying
nature of the received envelope of a flat fading signal, or the envelope of an individual
multipath component.

It is well known that the envelope of the sum of two quadrature Gaussian noise signals
obeys a Rayleigh distribution.
A typical Rayleigh Fading envelope at 900 MHz
 Rayliegh distribution has probability density function,

where στρ is the rms value of the received voltage signal before envelope detection, and σ2
is the time-average power of the received signal before envelope detection.
The probability that the envelope of the received signal does not exceed a specified value
R is given by the corresponding cumulative distribution function (CDF)

The mean value rmean of the Rayleigh distribution is given by

Variance of the Rayleigh distribution is given by which represents the ac power in the
signal envelope

The median value of r is found by solving the following equation

By using median values instead of mean values it is easy to compare different fading
distributions which may have widely varying means
Rayleigh PDF
Cumulative distribution for three small-scale fading measurements and their fit to Rayleigh,
Ricean, and log-normal distributions [
 Ricean Fading Distribution

When there is a dominant stationary (nonfading) signal component present, such as a line-
of-sight propagation path, the small-scale fading envelope distribution is Ricean.

In such a situation, random multipath components arriving at different angles are

superimposed on a stationary dominant signal. At the output of an envelope detector, this
has the effect of adding a dc component to the random multipath.

As the dominant signal becomes weaker, the composite signal resembles a noise signal
which has an envelope that is Rayleigh.

Thus, the Ricean distribution degenerates to a Rayleigh distribution when the dominant
component fades away.
 The Ricean distribution is given by

The parameter A denotes the peak amplitude of the dominant signal and I(.) is the modified
Bessel function of the first kind and zero-order.
The Ricean distribution is often described in terms of a parameter K which is defined as
the ratio between the deterministic signal power and the variance of the multipath.

The parameter K is known as the Ricean factor and completely specifies the Ricean
distribution. As A → 0, K → ∞ dB, and as the dominant path decreases in
amplitude, the Ricean distribution degenerates to a Rayleigh distribution.
Probability density function of Ricean distributions: K = → ∞ dB (Rayleigh) and K =
6 dB. For K>>1, the Ricean pdf is approximately Gaussian about the mean.
PROBLEMS

1. lot the probability density function and the CDF for a Ricean distribution having
(a) K = 10 dB and (b) K = 3 dB.
The abscissa of the CDF plot should be labeled in dB relative to the median signal level for both plots.
Note that the median value for a Ricean distribution changes as K changes.

2. A flat Rayleigh fading signal at 6 GHz is received by a mobile traveling at 80 km/hr.

(a) Determine the number of positive-going zero crossings about the rms value that occur over a 5s
interval.
(b) Determine the average duration of a fade below the rms level.
(c) Determine the average duration of a fade at a level of 20 dB below the rms value.
 Level Crossing and Fading Statistics
The level crossing rate (LCR) and average fade duration of a Rayleigh fading signal are
two important statistics which are useful for designing error control codes and diversity
schemes to be used in mobile communication systems.

The level crossing rate (LCR) is defined as the expected rate at which the Rayleigh
fading envelope, normalized to the local rms signal level, crosses a specified level in a
positive-going direction. The number of level crossings per second is given by

where 𝑟ሶ is the time derivative of r (t) (i.e., the slope), p (R, 𝑟ሶ ) is the joint density function
of r and 𝑟ሶ at r = R, fm, is the maximum Doppler frequency and ρ = R/Rrms is the value of
the specified level R, normalized to the local rms amplitude of the lading envelope.
There are few crossings at both high and low levels, with the maximum rate occurring at
1
𝜌 = , (i.e., at a level 3 dB below the rms level).
The average fade duration is defined as the average period of time for which the received
signal is below a specified level R. For a Rayleigh fading signal, this is given by

where Pr [r ≤ R] is the probability that the received signal r is less than R and is given by

where τi is the duration of the fade and T is the observation interval of the fading
signal. The probability that the received signal r is less than the threshold R is found
from the Rayleigh distribution as
where p (r) is the pdf of a Rayleigh
distribution.
The average fade duration as a function of ρ and fm can be expressed as

The average duration of a signal fade helps determine the most likely number of
signaling bits that may be lost during a fade.

Average fade duration primarily depends upon the speed of the mobile, and decreases as
the maximum Doppler frequency fm becomes large.

If there is a particular fade margin built into the mobile communication system, it is
appropriate to evaluate the receiver performance by determining the rate at which the
input signal falls below a given level R, and how long it remains below the level, on
average.
This is useful for relating SNR during a fade to the instantaneous BER which results
 PROBLEMS

1. For a Rayleigh fading signal, compute the positive-going level crossing rate for ρ = 1, when the
maximum Doppler frequency (fm) is 20 Hz. What is the maximum velocity of the mobile for this
Doppler frequency if the carrier frequency is 900 MHz?

2. Find the average fade duration for threshold levels ρ = 0.01, ρ = 0.1, and ρ = 1, when the Doppler
frequency is 200 Hz.

3. Find the average fade duration for a threshold level of ρ = 0.707 when the Doppler frequency is 20
Hz. For a binary digital modulation with bit duration of 50 bps, is the Rayleigh fading slow or fast?
What is the average number of bit errors per second for the given data rate. Assume that a bit error
occurs whenever any portion of a bit encounters a fade for which ρ < 0.1.

4. Vehicle receives a 900 MHz transmission while traveling at a constant velocity for 10 s. The
average fade duration for a signal level 10 dB below the rms level is 1 ms. How far does the vehicle
travel during the 10 s interval? How many fades does the signal undergo at the rms threshold level
during a 10 s interval? Assume that the local mean remains constant during travel.