Simulation of multipath fading channels using

Rayleigh model and its behaviour for different

digital modulation techniques
*

S S Varun B Manish Nitish

Dept. of ECE Dept. of ECE Dept. of ECE
Siddaganga Institute of Technology Siddaganga Institute of Technology Siddaganga Institute of Technology
Tumakuru, India Tumakuru, India Tumakuru, India
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Nirikshith P
Dept. of ECE
Siddaganga Institute of Technology
Tumakuru, India
[email protected]

Abstract—Design Engineers of portable correspondence frame- avoid high costs. Simulation is one such idea that permits the
works are confronting difficulties in communication channel, way designer to decide the rightness and efficiency of a channel
misfortune, shadowing and Fading. These effects have a solid before the framework is developed in reality. Consequently, the
effect on the nature of the remote channel and the capacity of a
receiver to interpret a carefully tweaked signal.Rayleigh fading client may investigate the benefits of these simulated channels
model assumes that the magnitude of the transmitted signal without building the frameworks. Simulation here is trying
through the channel will vary randomly according to the Rayleigh multipath fading channel model for remote correspondence.
distribution.In this paper we discuss the behaviour of rayleigh In remote transmission framework where a receiver is moving
model on the amplitude of the transmitted signal and the bit comparatively with a transmitter with no view way between
error rate (BER) for BPSK,QPSK and QAM techniques. These
Modulation schemes is used for analysis of BER with Rayleigh their radio wires the Rayleigh fading is a decent estimation of
and Additive White Gaussian Noise(AWGN) channel. An open sensible channel conditions.
source siumulation tool called GNU OCTAVE is used for the
purpose. II. T YPES OF FADING
Index Terms—Rayleigh model, AWGN channel, BER, GNU
Octave

I. I NTRODUCTION
The design, production and deployment of innovative chan-
nel models have significant high design costs. Therefore man-
ufacturers search for different alternatives to avoid high costs.
Simulation is one such idea that permits the designer to decide
the rightness and efficiency of a channel before the frame-
work is developed in reality. Consequently, the client may
investigate the benefits of these simulated channels without
building the frameworks. Simulation here is trying multipath
fading channel model for remote correspondence. In remote
transmission framework where a receiver is moving compara- Fig. 1. Classification of different types of fading
tively with a transmitter with no view way between their radio
wires the Rayleigh fading is a decent estimation of sensible
channel conditions.The design, production and deployment of A. Large Scale Fading And Small Scale Fading
innovative channel models have significant high design costs. Figure.1 represents an outline of manifestations of fading
Therefore manufacturers search for different alternatives to channel. The communication channel mainly classified into
two types of Fading i.e large scale fading and small scale If the symbol time duration is added noteworthy than the chan-
Fading. Path loss resulting from the impact of the signal nel’s coherence time again it is alarm Fast Fading. The channel
traveling over larger distances is referred to as large- Scale impulse response changes fast aural the symbol interval of the
Fading. Signals traveling over regions that are suffering from signal in Fast Fading channels. Along these curve a signal
prominent terrain contours (hills, forests, billboards, clumps of undergoes Fast Fading if
homes,and many others) among the transmitter and receiver.
Ts > Tc (4)
The path loss is classified with the help of a median loss and
a fluctuation across this median loss. The changes in signal Here Ts is symbol time duration and Tc is coherence time.
amplitude and segment that results due to tiny modifications
inside the spatial separation among a receiver and trans- D. Frequency flat and Frequency selective fading
mitter refers to small-scale Fading. Multipath propagation, Frequency selective fading is a radio propagation anomaly
relative movement amongst transmitter and recipient, speed caused by partial cancellation of a radio signal by itself the
of encompassing and transmission information measure of the signal arrives at the receiver by two different paths, and at
signal are a physical component that causes small-scale fading. least one of the paths is changing. This type of fading occurs
Shadowing, diffraction, reflection and refraction are the causes when
of multipath propagation of the transmitted radio signal.
Bs > Bc (5)
B. Coherence Bandwidth and Coherence Time
A measurement of the minimum time applicable for the Frequency Flat Fading channel is one in which a signal’s
magnitude modification of the channel to become uncorrelated bandwidth is less than coherence bandwidth. The bandwidth
from its antecedent quantity accepted as the coherence time. over which the frequency response of the channel is flat is
Coherence time is in fact a statistical of the time breach during called the coherence .This type of fading occurs when
which the channel impulse response is about invariant, and at
altered times quantifies the affinity of the channel response. Bs < Bc (6)
The channel coherence time TC that measures the time breach Here Bs is signal bandwidth and Bc is coherence band-
over which the fading abnormality correlated. width.
The Doppler Effect and coherence time are inversely pro-
portional to every alternative. It is represented as III. S OFWARE D ESCRIPTION
1 In this paper an open source simulation tool called GNU
Tc ≈ (1) Octave is used.GNU Octave is a high-level language simu-
fm
lation tool which is developed for numerical computations.
Here fm is doppler shift frequency. It provides a convenient command line interface for solving
linear and nonlinear problems numerically, and for performing
Coherence bandwidth is a statistical measurement of the other numerical experiments using a language that is mostly
range of frequencies over which the channel can be considered compatible with Matlab. It may also be used as a batch-
”flat”, or in other words the approximate maximum bandwidth oriented language.The Octave language is an interpreted pro-
or frequency interval over which two frequencies of a signal gramming language. It is a structured programming language
are likely to experience comparable or correlated amplitude (similar to C) and supports many common C standard library
fading. If the multipath time delay spread equals D seconds, functions, and also certain Matlab system calls and functions.
then the coherence bandwidth Wc in rad/s is given approxi- Octave has extensive tools for solving common numeri-
mately by the equation cal linear algebra problems, finding the roots of nonlinear
1 equations, integrating ordinary functions, manipulating poly-
Bc ≈ (2) nomials, and integrating ordinary differential and differential-
D
Here Bc is Coherence bandwidth and D is multipath spread. algebraic equations. It is easily extensible and customizable
via user-defined functions written in Octave’s own language, or
C. Slow fading and Fast fading using dynamically loaded modules written in C++, C, Fortran,
For the when announcement of attenuation channels the or other languages.
clarification amidst slow and quickly attenuation is capital and
IV. I MPEMENTATION AND R ESULTS
for the action appraisal of communication systems working
over these channels. The agreement Slow and Fast attenu- A. Fading
ation touch to the quantity at that the magnitude and face In wireless communications, fading is deviation of the
amendment tormented by the channel on the signal changes. attenuation that a carrier modulated telecommunication signal
The crumbling known as Fading is alleged to be slow if the experiences over certain propagation media. The fading may
character time length is littler than the channel’s coherence vary with time, geographical position and/or radio frequency.
time .That is, In wireless systems, fading may either be due to multipath
Ts < Tc (3) propagation, referred to as multipath induced fading, or due
to shadowing from obstacles affecting the wave propagation, model for tropospheric and ionospheric signal propagation as
sometimes referred to as shadow fading. The presence of well as the effect of heavily built-up urban environments on
reflectors in the environment surrounding transmitter and radio signals. Rayleigh fading is most applicable when there
receiver create multiple paths that a transmitted signal can is no dominant propagation along a line of sight between the
traverse. As a result, the receiver experiences the superposition transmitter and receiver. The requirement that there be many
of multiple copies of the transmitted signal, each traversing a scatters present means that Rayleigh fading can be a useful
different path. Each signal copy will experience differences in model in heavily built-up city centers where there is no line of
attenuation, delay and phase shift while traveling from source sight between the transmitter and receiver and many buildings
to receiver. This can result in either constructive or destructive and other objects attenuate, reflect, refract, and diffract the
interference,amplifying or attenuating signal power seen at the signal. Experimental work in Manhattan has found near-
receiver. The coherence time of the channel is related to quan- Rayleigh fading there. In tropospheric and ionospheric signal
tity known as Doppler spread of the channel. When a user is propagation the many particles in the atmospheric layers act as
moving, the users velocity causes shift in the frequency of the scatterers and this kind of environment may also approximate
signal transmitted along each signal path. This phenomenon is Rayleigh fading. If the environment is such that, in addition
known as Doppler shift.Signals traveling along different paths to the scattering, there is a strongly dominant signal seen at
can have different Doppler shifts, corresponding to different the receiver, usually caused by a line of sight, then the mean
rates of change in phase. The difference in Doppler shifts of the random process will no longer be zero, varying instead
between different signals components contributing to a single around the power-level of the dominant path.
fading channel tap is known as the Doppler spread. Channels
with a larger Doppler spread have signal components that are
each changing independently in phase over time. Since fading
depends on whether signal components add constructively
or destructively, such channels have a very short coherence
time.In general, coherence time is inversely related to Doppler
spread, typically expressed as
1
Tc = (7)
Ds
where Tc is the coherence time, Ds is the Doppler
spread(Doppler shift).
B. AWGN channel
Fig. 2. Rayleigh fading channel with two path sine wave input
AWGN channel is a universal channel model.The multipath
fading is accurately modeled as a frequency non-selective time
The Rayleigh fading is implemented using the below equa-
varying multiplicative distortion with some phase shift.AWGN
tion
is often used as a channel model in which the only impairment
to communication is a linear addition of wideband or white y(t) = g1(t) ∗ s(t) + 0.5[τ ∗ g2 ∗ s(t)] (8)
noise with a constant spectral density and a Gaussian distri-
bution of amplitude.The AWGN channel is a good model for Where, y(t) is that the outgoing signal, s(t) is that the entered
many satellite and deep space communication links. It is not signal, τ is delay or phase shift, g1 is constant(fixed) gain, g2
a good model for most terrestrial links because of multipath, is variable(non-fixed) gain. Its miles a statistical representation
terrain blocking, interference, etc. However, for terrestrial path used to measure the impact of a broadcast surroundings on
modeling, AWGN is commonly used to simulate background a radio signal, which includes that used in case of wireless
noise of the channel under study, in addition to multipath, ter- gadgets.
rain blocking, interference, ground clutter and self interference The envelope of the received signal with Rayleigh distribu-
that modern radio systems encounter in terrestrial operation. tion has the probability density function (pdf) is as shown in
C. Rayleigh model equation.
Rayleigh fading is a statistical model for the effect of a
propagation environment on a radio signal, such as that used α α2
Pα (α) = exp(− ) (9)
by wireless devices.Rayleigh fading models assume that the 2σ 2 2σ 2
magnitude of a signal that has passed through such a trans-
mission medium (also called a communication channel) will Where, α is the channel fade amplitude and σ 2 is the time
vary randomly, or fade, according to a Rayleigh distribution average power of the received signal.
the radial component of the sum of two uncorrelated Gaussian The probability density function is plotted and is shown
random variables.Rayleigh fading is viewed as a reasonable below.
 Fig. 5. BER for BPSK over Rayleigh and AWGN channels

Fig. 3. Rayleigh Probability density function

B. QPSK
The random bits generated and modulated using QPSK
V. B EHAVIOUR OF R AYLEIGH CHANNEL FOR DIFFERENT schemeare. These modulated bits are transmitted through
DIGITAL MODULATION TECHNIQUE Rayleigh faded channel and also the channel affected by
AWGN. At the receiver end detection of this bits are carried
A. BPSK
out and Bit Error Rate(BER) is calculated and plotted. The
The random bits generated and modulated using BPSK block diagram of This QPSK scheme is as shown below.
schemeare. These modulated bits are transmitted through
Rayleigh faded channel and also the channel affected by
AWGN. At the receiver end coherent detection of this bits are
carried out and Bit Error Rate(BER) is calculated and plotted.
The block diagram of This BPSK scheme is as shown below.

Fig. 6. Block diagram of QPSK scheme

The simulated BER performance of QPSK in AWGN and

rayleigh channel is as shown below
Fig. 4. Block diagram of BPSK scheme

The theoretical BER for BPSK modulation scheme over

Rayleigh fading channel (with AWGN noise) is given by
v
u Eb
1 u
Pb = (1 − t N 0Eb ) (10)
2 1+ N 0

The theoretical BER for BPSK modulation scheme over an

AWGN channel is given by
r Fig. 7. BER performance of QPSK in AWGN and rayleigh channel
1 Eb
Pb = erf c( ) (11)
2 N0
C. QAM
The simulated output of BER for BPSK over Rayleigh and Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is a digital mod-
AWGN channels is shown. ulation method widely used in modern telecommunications to
transmit information. It conveys two digital bit streams, by [3] Claudio, B. S., and amp; Horacio, T. S. (2017). ”The use of Rayleigh’s
changing (modulating) the amplitudes of two carrier waves, distribuition to modelate the multipath channel fading parameters with
FIR filters. 2017 IEEE URUCON. doi:10.1109/urucon.2017.8171848
using the amplitude-shift keying (ASK) digital modulation [4] Kaur, T., Singh, J., and amp; Sharma, A. (2017). ”Simulative analysis
scheme. The two carrier waves of the same frequency are of Rayleigh and Rician fading channel model and its mitigation. 2017
out of phase with each other by 90°, a condition known as 8th International Conference on Computing, Communication and Net-
working Technologies (ICCCNT). doi:10.1109/icccnt.2017.8204186
orthogonality or quadrature. The transmitted signal is created [5] Magableh, A. M., and Matalgah, M. M. (2011). ”Channel characteristics
by adding the two carrier waves together. At the receiver, the of the generalized alpha-mu multipath fading model. 2011 7th Interna-
two waves can be coherently separated (demodulated) because tional Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference.
doi:10.1109/iwcmc.2011.5982766
of their orthogonality property. Another key property is that [6] Ahlem, B. L., Bechir Dadi, M., and Belgacem Rhaimi, C. (2015). ”Eval-
the modulations are low-frequency/low-bandwidth waveforms uation of BER of digital modulation schemes for AWGN and wireless
compared to the carrier frequency, which is known as the fading channels. 2015 World Congress on Information Technology and
Computer Applications (WCITCA). doi:10.1109/wcitca.2015.7367027
narrowband assumption. [7] Baki, A. K. M., Absar, M. W., Rahman, T., and Ahamed, K. M. A.
(2017), ”Investigation of Rayleigh and Rician fading channels for state
of the art (SOA) LTE-OFDM communication system. 2017 4th Inter-
national Conference on Advances in Electrical Engineering (ICAEE).
doi:10.1109/icaee.2017.8255375.
[8] Trifonov, P. (2015). ”Design of polar codes for Rayleigh fading channel,
2015 International Symposium on Wireless Communication Systems
(ISWCS). doi:10.1109/iswcs.2015.7454357.
[9] Luo, Z., and Zhang, W. (2007),”The Simulation Models for Rayleigh
Fading Channels. 2007 Second International Conference on Communi-
cations and Networking in China. doi:10.1109/chinacom.2007
[10] Luo, Z., and Hu, F.(2010),”Simulation models for independent
Rayleigh fading channels. 2010 Global Mobile Congress.
doi:10.1109/gmc.2010.5634573

Fig. 8. BER plot for 16 QAM modulation over AWGN and rayleigh channel

C ONCLUSION
In this paper simulation of multipath fading channels using
Rayleigh model and its behaviour for different digital modula-
tion techniques are carried out. Initially fading is demonstrated
for rayleigh fading channel with two path sine wave input. The
probability density function is plotted for rayleigh fading chan-
nel. The Rayleigh channel object is created for transmission
of bits that are randomly generated. The BER performance of
the system can be found over AWGN and RAYLEIGH fading
channel using the BPSK, QPSK modulation schemes. From
the plots of the BER, it is concluded that when the Signal to
Noise Ratio(SNR) is very low it does not have any impact
on the BER. However if Signal to Noise Ratio is increased
the BER is reduced accordingly. Various digital modulation
schemes like BPSK, QPSK and QAM are evaluated based on
BER over both AWGN and Rayleigh fading channels. Through
simulations using GNU Octave it is concluded that BPSK
performs better compared to QPSK and QAM for both the
cases- using AWGN channel and Rayleigh fading channel.
Moreover, fading phenomenon is primarily a result of the time
variations in the phase.
R EFERENCES
[1] Yun Hee Kim, Iickho Song, Hong Gil Kim, Taejoo Chang, and Hyung
Myung Kim. (1999). ”Performance analysis of a coded OFDM system
in time-varying multipath Rayleigh fading channels. IEEE Transactions
on Vehicular Technology, 48(5), 1610–1615. doi:10.1109/25.790538
[2] Dawa, M., Kaddoum, G., and Sattar, Z. (2018). ”A Generalized Lower
Bound on the Bit Error Rate of DCSK Systems Over Multi-Path Rayleigh
Fading Channels. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express
Briefs, 65(3), 321–325. doi:10.1109/tcsii.2017.2733381