Experiment 1

American International University- Bangladesh

Department of Faculty of Engineering
EEE 4209: Telecommunication Engineering Laboratory

Title: Estimation of received bit energy for data rates in wireless communications.

Introduction:

Estimating the required received per bit energy is inevitably a crucial need for designing reliable wireless
communication systems. The estimation provides with information regarding fundamental trade-off between
received power and channel bandwidth requirements. The other way around, it defines regions that are
constrained either by received power or available channel bandwidth. According to Shannon’s theory of
channel capacity, channel capacity is constrained fundamentally by available channel bandwidth (BW) and
signal-to-noise ratio (S/N), assuming the channel is noise-limited only, as such can be expressed by equation 1.

𝑆
𝐶 = 𝐵𝑊 log 2 (1 + 𝑁) (1)

where, the symbols represent as follows:

C is channel capacity in bits/s,

BW is channel bandwidth in Hz,
S is received signal power in watt,
N is receiver noise power in watt

Hence the basic constrains because of why the radio channel capacity is limited are available
channel BW and signal-to-noise (S/N)

Theory and Methodology:

System Model:

Denote per bit energy by Eb (watt-s), data rate by R (bits/s) and noise power spectral density by N0 (Watt/Hz),
received signal power S can be expressed as S = EbR and received noise power N can be expressed as N =
N0BW. Note that the receiver noise is assumed constant over the channel BW. From Equation 1, it can be
found that, in principle, data rate R is upper limited by channel capacity, i.e. mathematically can be expressed
as follows.

𝑅≤𝐶 (2)

Denote bandwidth utilization of a radio channel link by  , which can be mathematically expressed as follows.
In words, bandwidth utilization of a radio link is the data rates over the available BW for the link.

𝑹
𝜸 = 𝑩𝑾 (3)

Hence, using Equations 1 and 2 and putting the values of S and N as aforementioned, channel bandwidth
utilization can be explored, which is upper limited by the following.
 𝑺
𝜸 ≤ 𝒍𝒐𝒈𝟐 (𝟏 + 𝜸 𝑵) (4)

This gives the lower limit, i.e. the minimum received per bit energy Eb (normalized to N0) in terms of  as
follows.

𝑬𝒃 𝑬 𝟐𝜸 −𝟏
𝑵𝟎
≥ 𝒎𝒊𝒏 (𝑵𝒃 ) = 𝜸
(5)
𝟎

Simulation Algorithm:

Step 1 Set value for  and use equation 5 for the corresponding values Eb/ N0 in dB.
Step 2 Repeat step 1 if  reaches its maximum defined value.
Step 3 Plot (use semi-log graph) Eb/ N0 [dB] versus  [bits/s per Hz].
Step 4 Define power-limited region and bandwidth-limited region on the plot.

Performance Evaluation:

If we plot Eb/ N0 as a function of  ; the following as in figure 1 can be found. (Students are supposed to plot
figure 1 on their own as part of the experiment using MATLAB)

Figure 1: Minimum received signal normalized (to N0) per bit energy Eb/ N0 as a function of bandwidth
utilization  .
 Figure 1 gives several points that can be expressed as follows.

• As long as  1 , i.e. data rate R is lower or equal to channel bandwidth BW , irrespective of data rate
increase over the channel BW, channel BW does not impact significantly the required N0 Eb to achieve
higher data rates since the plot shows approximately flat over this region (   =1 ). The other way around,
this implies that within this region only signal power can help increase the achievable increase in data rate.
Since any increase in data rate in this region requires a proportionate increase in received signal power,
assuming noise power is constant over the channel BW, with no or insignificant impact of channel BW, this
region is called power-limited region [1].

• However, for   1, any increase in data rate requires much larger increase in received signal power if
channel BW remain unchanged. This large increase in received power can be compensated by a proportionate
increase in channel BW with data rate. That is why this region is called bandwidth-limited region.

Apparatus:

(1) A PC/Laptop with MATLAB installed.

Results and Discussion:

The above discussion can simply be understood by the fact that for R  BW, there is no limitation from
channel BW irrespective of the degree of increase in R. this means the only way is to increase data rate (see
equation 1) is to increase received signal power (moreover, log2(1+x)  x as long as x is small enough,
otherwise log2(1+x)  log2(x)). For R>BW, received signal power varies logarithmically (log2(x)). Hence much
signal power is needed for a small change in data rates. However, a proportionate change in channel BW is
enough to provide the required increase in data rates and hence reduction in received signal power required for
the increase in data rates.

Report Questions:

1. Plot received signal normalized (to N0) per bit energy Eb/ N0 as a function of bandwidth utilization .
Define power-limited and bandwidth-limited regions on the plot. Is the plot consistence with figure
1? If it is not such as so mention the reasons.

2. What does power-limited and bandwidth-limited region mean? Consider a noise-only limited
wireless communication channel. Assume receiver noise is flat over the channel bandwidth B.

As being system designer; you are given with the following scenarios for an arbitrary data rate R.

• Scenario 1: R=0.3B,
• Scenario 2: R=B,
• Scenario 3: R=3B.

Identify which region in the plot (obtained from Question 1) you would rather consider for operating
the system and mention your considerations for designing the system for all these scenarios.

3. Explain the role of minimum Eb/ N0 on wireless communication channel design considerations.

4. Write a summary on what you have learned, observed, things went wrong (if in your experiment
you have not had the predicted result), and how you can overcome the similar problem in future.
Reference(s):

1. E. Dahlman, S. Parkvall & J. Sköld, “4G LTE/LTE-advanced for Mobile Broadband”, Academic
Press, UK, 2011.

Appendix:

Following MATLAB Functions would be helpful for this experiment.

• randint (1, x, [p q]): Generate one dimensional matrix of uniformly distributed random integers
between p and q with a maximum of x number.

• for i=1:0.5:10 end: this command continues a loop for a maximum of 10 with an increment of 0.5
starting from 1.

• semilogx(x) is the same as the command plot(x), but a logarithmic (with base 10) scale is used for
the x-axis. • disp(‘x’): display x on the command window.

• Legend(x1, x2, ...): puts a legend on the current plot using the specified strings as labels (x1, x2).
legend works on line graphs, bar graphs, pie graphs, etc.

Things may get confused

array(x): define any value of a one-dimensional matrix array [x] with a variable x defines the
position of the element in the matrix.
array[x]: defines a one-dimensional matrix. Things may get remembered Any line in MATLAB
must end with a semicolon (;)

If you do not know any command or the functionality of a command, simply write help space that
command in the command window. Example: help disp

Note that MATLAB has a few built-in M-files, which will guide you during your simulation once
called upon them in the command window.

It is a good way to write the program in separate M-file and save that file as .m since writing
directly on the command window may get you lost the written program, if you either forget to save
or clear the command window.
Code:

%======================================================================
% Telecommunications Engineering Laboratory
%======================================================================
% TE_LAB 01: Estimation of received bit energy for data rates in wireless Communications
%======================================================================
% Define variables

rr=100;
Eb_No_min=randint(1,rr,[0 0]);
Eb_No_min_dB=randint(1,rr,[0 0]); % minimum Eb/N0 in dB
gamma=randint(1,rr,[0 0]);
gamma(1)=0.1; % bandwidth utilization gamma(1)=0.1;

%======================================================================

for i=1:1:rr %find values of Eb/N0 corresponds to bandwidth utilization

Eb_No_min(i)=((2^gamma(i))-1)/gamma(i);
Eb_No_min_dB(i)=10*log10(Eb_No_min(i));
gamma(i+1)=gamma(i)+0.1;
end

%======================================================================
% Output variables

i=0.1:0.1:10;
semilogx(i,Eb_No_min_dB); % plot the graph in semilog format
%=====================================================================