SMALL-SCALE FADING


Small-Scale Fading
Rapid fluctuations of radio signal amplitude, phase, or delays
 Occurs or short time period or short travel distance
 Large-scale path loss effects can be ignored
 Caused by arrival of two or more waves from the source
combining at the receiver
 Resultant detected signal varies widely in amplitudes and phase
 Bandwidth of transmitted signal is important factor
Experimental record of received signal envelope in an
urban area
Multipathradio propagation in urban
areas
 Determining the impulse

response of a channel
Transmit a narrowband pulse into the channel

 Measure replicas of the pulse that traverse different paths

between transmitter and receiver
 Small-scale Multipath Propagation
• Fading: The rapid fluctuation of the amplitude of a radio signal
over a short period of time or travel distance.
• Fading is caused by interference between two or more versions
of the transmitted signal, which arrive at slightly different times.
• Multipath in the radio channel creates small-scale fading effects.
• Phenomenon :
1. Rapid changes in signal strength over a small travel
distance or time interval.
2.  Random frequency modulation due to varying Doppler
shifts on different multipath signals.
3.  Time dispersion caused by multipath propagation delays.
• If objects in the radio channel are static, and motion is
considered to be only due to that of the mobile, then fading is
purely a spatial phenomenon.
• Antenna space diversity can prevent deep fading nulls.
 Factors influencing Small-scale fading
• Multipath propagation: multipath propagation
often lengthens the time required for the
baseband portion of the signal to reach the
receiver which can cause signal smearing due
to inter-symbol interference.
 Factors influencing Small-
scale fading
• Speed of the mobile: generate random Doppler shifts.
– Train passing
• Speed of surrounding objects: if the surrounding objects
move at a greater rate than the mobile, then this effect
dominates the small-scale fading.
• The transmission bandwidth of the signal: if signal’s
bandwidth  bandwidth of the multipath channel 
received signal will be distorted.
– The coherent bandwidth is a measure of the
maximum frequency difference for which signals are
still strongly correlated in amplitude.
Comparison of the BER for a fading
and non-fading channel
Doppler Shift
Illustration of Doppler effect
 Doppler Shift
 Distance difference
 Phase difference
 Doppler frequency shift
 Frequency shift is positive when mobile moves toward
source
 In a multipath environment, frequency shift for each ray may
be different, leading to a spread of received frequencies.
 For example, for pure sinusoid, the signal blurred in
frequency.
 Impulse Response Model of
a Multipath Channel
 Model radio channel as a linear filter with a time-varying
impulse response
 Time variation due to motion of receiver and/or objects in the
environment
 “Filtering” is caused by the summation of the amplitudes and
delays of multiple arriving waves at an instant in time
 d=vt
Fading due to two incoming signals combine
with different phases
 Impulse Response Model of a Multipath Channel

 The impulse response is a wideband channel characterization and

contains all information necessary to simulate or analyze any type of
radio transmission through the channel. Impulse response model
actually is a linear filter with a time varying impulse response.
t t
y ( d , t )  x ( t ) h ( d , t )   x ( ) h ( d , t   ) d   x ( ) h (vt , t   ) d
 

 The variable t represents the time variations due to motion, whereas 

represents the channel multipath delay for a fixed value of t.
 It is useful to discretize the multipath delay axis  of the impulse
response into equal time delay segments called excess delay bins. The
unit of excess delay is , and the maximum excess delay of the channel
is N. The useful frequency span of the model is 1
2
Impulse Response Baseband
Model
 Impulse Response Model of a Multipath Channel
 That means the impulse response models may be used to
analyze transmitted signals having bandwidth less than 1
2

 The baseband impulse response of a multipath channel can

be expressed as
N 1
hb ( t , )  
i
ai ( t , )exp[ j2f c i ( t )  ( t , )] (   i ( t ))
0

 If the channel impulse response is assumed to be time

invariant over a small-scale time or distance interval, then
the channel impulse response may be simplified as
N 1
hb (  )   a i exp[ j i ]  (    i )
i 0
Impulse Response Model of a
Multipath Channel
Delay profile of a multipath channel
 Small-scale Multipath
Measurements
 Three methods of wideband channel sounding techniques
 Direct RF Pulse System
 Spread Spectrum Sliding Correlator Channel Sounding
 Frequency Domain Channel Sounding
 Direct RF Pulse System
 Determine the power delay profile of any channel by using
pulse signal with pulse width bb. The main problem with
this system is that it is subject to interference and noise.
 Another disadvantage is that the phases of the individual
multipath components are not received.
Small-scale Multipath Measurements
 Small-scale Multipath
Measurements
 Spread Spectrum Sliding Correlator Channel Sounding
 Spread spectrum, processing gain
 Time resolution: 2Tc=2/Rc
 The advantage of a spread spectrum system is that, while the probing
signal may be wideband, it is possible to detect the transmitted signal
using a narrow band receiver, thus improving the dynamic range of the
system as compared to the direct RF pulse system.
 The transmitter chip clock is run at a slightly faster rate than the receiver
chip clock. This implementation is called a sliding correlator.
 A disadvantage of the spread spectrum system is that measurements are
not made in real time, but they are compiled as the PN codes slide past
one another
Small-scale Multipath
Measurements
 Small-scale Multipath
Measurements
 Frequency Domain Channel Sounding
 Measure the frequency response of the channel first then convert it to time
response.
 It is useful only for very close measurements (indoor channel sounding).
 It is a non-real time measurement.
Small-scale Multipath
Measurements