UEC1701

High Frequency Communication

Systems
MILLIMETER WAVE PROPAGATION
 Session Meta Data

Author R Kishore

Version No 1.1

Release Date 13.07.2021

Reviewer
 Revision History

Date of Revision Details Version Number

 Session Objectives

 To discuss the small scale propagation models for millimeter

waves in detail
 Session Outcomes

 At the end of this session, students will be able to

 Explain the small scale propagation models for millimeter
waves.
 Small Scale Channel Effects

• The term fading is used to describe rapid fluctuation of the

amplitude of a radio signal over a short period of time or
travel distance.
• Fading is caused by destructive interference between two or more
versions of the transmitted signal being slightly out of phase due
to the different propagation time.
• Occurs due to multipath propagation.
• The different components are due to reflection and scattering
form trees buildings and hills etc.
 Small Scale Channel Effects
• At a receiver the radio waves generated by same transmitted
signal may come
• From Different direction
• With Different propagation delays,
• With Different amplitudes
• With Different phases
• Each of the factor given above is random.
• The multipath components combine vectorially at the receiver and
produce a fade or distortion.
 Small Scale Channel Effects
• Multipath propagation creates small-scale fading effects.
The three most important effects are:
– Rapid changes in signal strength over a small travel distance
or time interval;
– Random frequency modulation due to varying Doppler shifts
on different multipath signals; and
– Time dispersion (echoes) caused by multipath propagation
delays
• Even when a mobile receiver is stationary, the received
signal may fade due to a non-stationary nature of the
channel (reflecting objects can be moving)
Factors influencing Small Scale Channel Effects
• Multipath propagation
– The presence of reflecting objects and scatterers in the
space between transmitter and receiver creates a constantly
changing channel environment
– Causes the signal at receiver to fade or distort
• Speed of mobile receiver
– The relative motion between the transmitter and receiver
results in a random frequency modulation due to different
Doppler shifts on each of the multipath signals
– Doppler shift may be positive or negative depending on
direction of movement of mobile
 Factors influencing Small Scale Channel Effects
• Speed of surrounding objects:
– If the speed of surrounding objects is greater than user, the fading is
dominated by those objects
– If the surrounding objects are slower than the user, then their effect
can be ignored
• The transmission bandwidth:
– Depending on the relation between the signal bandwidth and the
coherence bandwidth of the channel, the signal is either distorted or
faded
– If the signal bandwidth is greater than coherence bandwidth it
creates distortion
– If the signal bandwidth is smaller than coherence bandwidth it
create small scale fading
 Doppler Shift
• Change in the apparent frequency of a signal as Tx and Rx move toward or
away from each other.
• The Doppler effect of a traveling wave can be explained as follows. For a
receiver with velocity v and a transmitter with velocity v0 traveling toward each
other, the perceived frequency f′ of the traveling wave at the receiver is given
by

• where f is the frequency of the signal transmitted.

• The Doppler frequency (change in frequency at the receiver)

• As the carrier frequency is increased in wireless systems, motion causes

magnified Doppler effects. Thus the Doppler effect might be 15-30 times
greater at 28-60 GHz compared with microwave wireless systems.
 Few Terminologies
• Doppler spread: Doppler spread refers to the widening of the received power
spectrum of a signal transmitted through a multipath propagation channel. This
width of the spectrum is known as Doppler Spread or fading bandwidth.

• Coherence time: The time interval over which the channel impulse response is
considered not to be time varying

• Doppler spread = 1/ Coherence time

• Delay spread: It is the difference between the time of arrival of the earliest
significant multipath component (typically the LOS component) and the time
of arrival of the last multipath components.

• Coherence bandwidth: range of frequencies over which the channel can be

considered flat

• Delay spread = 1/ Coherence Bandwidth

 Small Scale Channel Effects
Different types of transmitted signals undergo different types of
fading depending upon the relation between the
Signal Parameters: Bandwidth, Symbol Period
&
Channel Parameters: RMS Delay Spread, Doppler Spread
• In any mobile radio channel a wave can be dispersed either in
Time or in Frequency.
• These time and frequency dispersion mechanisms lead to four
possible distinct effects which depend on the nature of transmitted
signal, the channel and the velocity.
Small Scale Channel Effects
 Fading Channel

Large-scale Fading Small-scale Fading

Path Loss Shadowing Multipath Doppler

Effect Delay Spread Spread

Propagation Mobile Speed

Flat Environment Frequency Fast Slow
Fading Selective Fading Fading
Fading
High Doppler spread
Signal BW << Channel BW
Symbol period > Coherence Time
Symbol period >> Delay spread
Signal variation < Channel variation

Signal BW > Channel BW

Low Doppler spread
Symbol period < Delay spread
Symbol period << Coherence Time
Signal variation >>Channel variation
 Small Scale Channel Effects
• For the purpose of propagation channel characterization, it is
useful to consider the complex baseband equivalent channel
he(t) Motion of objects
Multipath

• We define each multipath component of the impulse response

arriving at the τℓth time as having a complex voltage
he[ℓ] = αℓe–j2πfcτ[ℓ] and l > 0 is the number of excessive
multipath components.
• Complex coefficients of each multipath component he[ℓ]
incorporate the large-scale propagation path loss effects
 Small Scale Channel Effects
• Mmwave frequency signals also observe a large percentage of
multipath contributions due to large surface scattering (i.e.,
scattering from large objects)
• Scattering occurs when objects similar in dimension to λ, the
operating wavelength, act as point sources when they obstruct
the propagation of electromagnetic waves
• Objects traditionally acting as scattering objects now become
reflectors at mmWave frequencies, and may induce significant
multipath effects in mmWave systems.
 Small Scale Channel Effects
• Given the multipath channel model, the delay of the channel
τ[0] is the absolute propagation time from the transmitter to
the receiver of the first arriving signal component.
• τ[0] is called the minimum excess delay time and is used to
denote the first arriving multipath component with a reference
delay of zero.
• while τ[L] is the absolute maximum propagation time of a
multipath signal component
• We define the maximum excess delay spread as the difference
Tmax = τ[L] – τ[0]
 Small Scale Channel Effects
• The root-mean-square (RMS) delay spread is defined as

where
• E|he[ℓ]|2 denotes the average of the channel impulse response
over a local area.
• This is often called a power delay profile (PDP), where the
area under the curve of the PDP represents the average
received power
 Small Scale Channel Effects
• RMS delay spread quantifies the temporal spreading
(multipath time dispersion) effect of the wireless channel.
• A simple channel parameter that loosely defines the spread of
propagation delays of a multipath channel.
• As a rule of thumb, for a given τRMS the number of symbols
that need to be equalized to remove inter-symbol interference
effects is

• for symbol rate 1/Ts.

 Delay Spread Characteristics
Approximate TRMS for different indoor scenarios at 60 GHz
The transmitter was elevated at a level of 3 m, and the receiver varied its elevation
from 1 to 4 m.

• Delay spread increases when the dimensions of the room increase and when
the wall reflection coefficient increases
• The distance between Tx and Rx does not have any effect on this
 Summary
• Small scale channel effects depends on multipath time delay spread and
Doppler spread.
• Delay spread cause flat or frequency selective fading.
• Doppler spread cause fast or slow fading.
 Test Your Understanding
• What do you mean by small scale propagation channel effects?
• What is Doppler spread?
 References
• Robert W. Heath, Robert C. Daniel, James N. Theodore S.
Rappaport, Murdock, Millimeter Wave Wireless
Communication, Prentice Hall, 2014.
Thank you !