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Slow &Fast Fading

The terms slow and fast fading refer to the rate at which the magnitude and phase change imposed by the channel on the signal changes. The coherence time is a measure of the minimum time required for the magnitude change of the channel to become uncorrelated from its previous value. Slow fading arises when the coherence time of the channel is large relative to the delay constraint of the channel. In this regime, the amplitude and phase change imposed by the channel can be considered roughly constant over the period of use. Slow fading can be caused by events such as shadowing, where a large obstruction such as a hill or large building obscures the main signal path between the

Fast fading occurs when the coherence time of the channel is small relative to the delay constraint of the channel. In this regime, the amplitude and phase change imposed by the channel varies considerably over the period of use.

The phenomenon of fast fading is represented by the rapid fluctuations of the signal over small areas. Slow fading is the result of shadowing by buildings, mountains, hills, and other objects.

Frequency Selective & Flat Fading


As the carrier frequency of a signal is varied, the magnitude of the change in amplitude will vary. The coherence bandwidth measures the separation in frequency after which two signals will experience uncorrelated fading. In flat fading, the coherence bandwidth of the channel is larger than the bandwidth of the signal. Therefore, all frequency components of the signal will experience the same magnitude of fading. In frequency-selective fading, the coherence bandwidth of the channel is smaller than the bandwidth of the signal. Different frequency components of the signal therefore experience decorrelated fading

Large-scale fading
In free space, received power attenuates like 1/r2.

With reflections and obstructions, can attenuate even more rapidly with distance. Detailed modelling complicated.

Time constants associated with variations are very long as the mobile moves, many seconds or minutes.

More important for cell site planning,

Small-scale multipath fading


Wireless communication typically happens at very high carrier frequency. (eg. fc = 900 MHz or 1.9 GHz for cellular) Multipath fading due to constructive and destructive interference of the transmitted waves. Channel varies when mobile moves a distance of the order of the carrier wavelength. This is 0.3 m for Ghz cellular. For vehicular speeds, this translates to channel variation of the order of 100 Hz. Primary driver behind wireless communication system design.

Channel Model D 802.11n


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Delay Spread

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D e la y in N a n o s e c o n d s

In telecommunications, the delay spread is a measure of the multipath richness of a channel. In general, it can be interpreted as the difference between the time of arrival of the first significant multipath component (typically the line-of-sight component) and the time of arrival of the last multipath component. It is mostly used in the characterization of wireless channels, but the same concept applies to any other multipath channel (e.g. multipath in optical fibers). Delay spread can be characterized through different metrics, although the most common one is the root mean square (rms) delay spread: According to Goldsmith [1] , let Ac() be the power delay profile of a channel. Then, the mean delay of the channel is

In wireless communications, fading is deviation of the attenuation that a carrier-modulated telecommunication signal experiences over certain propagation media. The fading may vary with time, geographical position and/or radio frequency, and is often modelled as a random process. A fading channel is a communication channel that experiences fading. In wireless systems, fading may either

The terms slow and fast fading refer to the rate at which the magnitude and phase change imposed by the channel on the signal changes. The coherence time is a measure of the minimum time required for the magnitude change of the channel to become uncorrelated from its previous value. Alternatively, it may be defined as the maximum time for which the magnitude change of channel is correlated to its previous

Slow fading arises when the coherence time of the channel is large relative to the delay constraint of the channel. In this regime, the amplitude and phase change imposed by the channel can be considered roughly constant over the period of use. Slow fading can be caused by events such as shadowing, where a large obstruction such as a hill or large building obscures the main signal path between the transmitter and the receiver. The amplitude change caused by shadowing is often modeled using a log-normal distribution with a standard deviation according to the log-distance path loss model.

Fast fading occurs when the coherence time of the channel is small relative to the delay constraint of the channel. In this regime, the amplitude and phase change imposed by the channel varies considerably over the period of use.

In a fast-fading channel, the transmitter may take advantage of the variations in the channel conditions using time diversity to help increase robustness of the communication to a temporary deep fade. Although a deep fade may temporarily erase some of the information transmitted, use of an error-correcting code coupled with successfully transmitted bits during other time instances (interleaving) can allow for the erased bits to be recovered. In a slow-fading channel, it is not possible to use time diversity because the transmitter sees only a single realization of the channel within its delay constraint. A deep fade therefore lasts the entire duration of transmission and cannot be mitigated using coding.

Time

Amplitude

Multi-path components are delayed depending on path length (delay spread) Phase shift causes frequency dependent constructive / destructive interference

Frequency

5.2 Multipath & Small-Scale Fading Multipath signals are received in a terrestrial environment, i.e., where dierent forms of propagation are present and the signals arrive at the receiver from transmitter via a variety of paths. Therefore there would be multipath interference, causing multipath fading. Adding the eect of movement of either Tx or Rx or the surrounding clutter to it, the received overall signal amplitude or phase changes over a small amount of time. Mainly this

Fading The term fading, or, small-scale fading, means rapid uctuations of the amplitudes, phases, or multipath delays of a radio signal over a short period or short travel distance. This might be so severe that large scale radio propagation loss eects might be ignored.

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