HKBK College of Engineering 18EC81 Wireless and Cellular Communications

Module 1
Mobile Radio Propagation
Large Scale Path Loss - Free Space Propagation Model, Relating Power to Electric Field, Three
Basic Propagation Mechanisms – Reflection (Ground Reflection), Diffraction, Scattering, Practical
Link Budget, ( Text 1 - 2.2 and Ref1 - Chapter 4).
Fading and Multipath – Broadband wireless channel, Delay Spread and Coherence Bandwidth,
Doppler Spread and Coherence Time, Angular spread and Coherence Distance (Text 1 – 2.4),
Statistical Channel Model of a Broadband Fading Channel (Text 1 – 2.5.1)
The Cellular Concept – Cellular Concept, Analysis of Cellular Systems, Sectoring (Text 1- 2.3)

Mobile Radio Propagation

Free Space Propagation Model:
The free space propagation model is used to predict received signal strength when the transmitter and
receiver have a clear, unobstructed line-of-sight path between them. Satellite communication systems and
microwave line-of-sight radio links typically undergo free space propagation. As with most large- scale
radio wave propagation models, the free space model predicts that received power decays as a function of
the T-R separation distance raised to some power (i.e. a power law function). The free space power received
by a receiver antenna which is separated from a radiating transmitter antenna by a distance d, is given by
the Friis free space equation,
Pr(d)= PtGtGrλ2/(4πd)2

where Pt is the transmitted power, Pr (d) is the received power which is a function of the T-R separation, Gt
is the transmitter antenna gain, Gr is the receiver antenna gain, d is the T-R separation distance in meters
and λ is the wavelength in meters. The gain of an antenna is related to its effective aperture, Ae by,

G=4πAe/λ2

The effective aperture Ae is related to the physical size of the antenna, and λ is related to the carrier
frequency by,
λ = c/f= 2πc/ωc
where f is the carrier frequency in Hertz, ωc , is the carrier frequency in radians per second, and c is the
speed of light given in meters/s.

An isotropic radiator is an ideal antenna which radiates power with unit gain uniformly in all directions,
and is often used to reference antenna gains in wireless systems. The e/7'ective isotropic radiated power
(EIRP) is defined as
EIRP = PtGt

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HKBK College of Engineering 18EC81 Wireless and Cellular Communications
and represents the maximum radiated power available from a transmitter in the direction of maximum
antenna gain, as compared to an isotropic radiator. In practice, effective radiated power (ERP) is used
instead of EIRP to denote the maximum radiated power as compared to a half-wave dipole antenna (instead
of an isotropic antenna).

The path loss, which represents signal attenuation as a positive quantity measured in dB, is defined as the
difference (in dB) between the effective transmitted power and the received power, and may or may not
include the effect of the antenna gains. The path loss for the free space model when antenna gains are
included is given by

PL (dB) = 10log(Pt/Pr) = -10log[PtGtGrλ2/(4πd)2]

When antenna gains are excluded, the antennas are assumed to have unity gain, and path loss is given by

PL (dB) = 10log(Pt/Pr) = -10log[λ2/(4πd)2]

The Friis free space model is only a valid predictor for Pr for values of d which are in the far-field of the
transmitting antenna. The far-field, or Fraunhofer region, of a transmitting antenna is defined as the region
beyond the far-field distance df, which is related to the largest linear dimension of the transmitter antenna
aperture and the carrier wavelength. The Fraunhofer distance is given by

df = 2D2/λ

where D is the largest physical linear dimension of the antenna. Additionally, to be in the far-field region,
df must satisfy

df>> D

# If a transmitter produces 50 watts of power, express the transmit power in units of (a) dBm, and
(b) dBW If 50 watts is applied to a unity gain antenna with a 900 MHz carrier frequency, find the
received power in dBm at a free space distance of 100 m from the antenna. What is Pr( 10 km) ?
Assume unity gain for the receiver antenna.

The Three Basic Propagation Mechanisms:

Reflection, diffraction, and scattering are the three basic propagation mechanisms which impact
propagation in a mobile communication system.

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HKBK College of Engineering 18EC81 Wireless and Cellular Communications
Reflection occurs when a propagating electromagnetic wave impinges upon an object which has very large
dimensions when compared to the wavelength of the propagating wave. Reflections occur from the surface
of the earth and from buildings and walls.

Diffraction occurs when the radio path between the transmitter and receiver is obstructed by a surface that
has sharp irregularities (edges). The secondary waves resulting from the obstructing surface are present
throughout the space and even behind the obstacle, giving rise to a bending of waves around the obstacle,
even when a line-of-sight path does not exist between transmitter and receiver. At high frequencies,
diffraction, like reflection depends on the geometry of the object, as well as the amplitude, phase, and
polarization of the incident wave at the point of diffraction.

Scattering occurs when the medium through which the wave travels consists of objects with dimensions
that are small compared to the wavelength, and where the number of obstacles per unit volume is large.
Scattered waves are produced by rough surfaces, small objects, or by other irregularities in the channel. In
practice, foliage, street signs, and lamp posts induce scattering in a mobile communications system.

Reflection:

When a radio wave propagating in one medium impinges upon another medium having different electrical
properties, the wave is partially reflected and partially transmitted. If the plane wave is incident on a perfect
dielectric, part of the energy is transmitted into the second medium and part of the energy is reflected back
into the first medium, and there is no loss of energy in absorption. lf the second medium isa perfect
conductor, then all incident energy is reflected back into the first medium without loss of energy.The electric
field intensity of the reflected and transmitted waves may be related to the incident wave in the medium of
origin through the Fresnel reflection coefficient (Г). The reflection coefficient is a functionof the material
properties, and generally depends on the wave polarization, angle of incidence, and the frequency of the
propagating wave.

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HKBK College of Engineering 18EC81 Wireless and Cellular Communications

Reflection from dielectrics:

Figure 3.4 shows an electromagnetic wave incident at an angle θi with the plane of the boundary between
two dielectric media. As shown in the figure, part of the energy is reflected back to the first media at an
angle θr, and part of the energy is transmitted (refracted) into the second media at an angle θt. The nature of
reflection varies with the direction of polarization of the E-field. The behavior for arbitrary directions of
polarization can be studied by considering the two distinct cases shown in Figure
The plane of incidence is defined as the plane containing the incident, reflected, and transmitted rays.
In Figure 3.4a, the E—field polarization is parallel with the plane of incidence (that is, the E-field has
a vertical polarization, or normal component, with respect to the reflecting surface) and in Figure 3.4b,
the E-field polarization is perpendicular to the plane of incidence (that is, the incident E-field is pointing
out of the page towards the reader, and is perpendicular to the page and parallel to the reflecting
surface).

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HKBK College of Engineering 18EC81 Wireless and Cellular Communications

Because of superposition, only two orthogonal polarizations need be considered to solve general reflection
problems. The reflection coefficients for the two cases of parallel and perpendicular E-field polarization at
the boundary of two dielectrics are given by

Where η is the intrinsic impedance of the respective medium.

Or,

Where ɛ is the permittivity of the respective medium.

Brewster Angle:

The Brewster angle is the angle at which no reflection occurs in the medium of origin. It occurs when the
incident angle BB is such that the reflection coefficient Г|| is equal to zero (see Figure 3.6), The Brewster
angle is given by the value of θB which satisfies

Sin(θB)= √(ɛ1)/√(ɛ1+ɛ2)

For the case when the first medium is free space and the second medium has a relative permittivity ɛr,
above equation can be expressed as

Sin(θB)= √(ɛr-1)/√(ɛr 2-1)

Note that the Brewster angle occurs only for vertical (i.e. parallel) polarization.

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HKBK College of Engineering 18EC81 Wireless and Cellular Communications
# Calculate the Brewster angle for a wave impinging on ground having a permittivity of ɛr = 4.

Reflection from Perfect Conductors:

Since electromagnetic energy cannot pass through a perfect conductor a plane wave incident on a conductor
has all of its energy reflected. As the electric field at the surface of the conductor must be equal to zero at
all times in order to obey Maxwel1’s equations, the reflected wave must be equal in magnitude to the
incident wave. For the case when E-field polarization is in the plane of incidence, the boundary conditions
require that

θi =θr

and Ei = Er (E-field in plane of incidence)

Similarly, for the case when the E-field is horizontally polarized, the boundary conditions require that
θi =θr
and Ei =- Er (E-field not in plane of incidence)

Ground Reflection (2-ray) Model:

In a mobile radio channel, a single direct path between the base station and a mobile is seldom the only
physical means for propagation, and hence the free space propagation model is in most cases inaccurate
when used alone. The 2-ray ground reflection model shown in Figure 3.7 is a useful propagation model that
is based on geometric optics, and considers both the direct path and a ground reflected propagation path
between transmitter and receiver. This model has been found to be reasonably accurate for predicting the
large-scale signal strength over distances of several kilometers for mobile radio systems that use tall towers
(heights which exceed 50 m), as well as for line of-sight, microcell channels in urban environments.

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HKBK College of Engineering 18EC81 Wireless and Cellular Communications

Referring to Figure 3.7, ht is the height of the transmitter and hr is the height of the receiver. lf Eo is the
free space E-field (in units of V/m) at a reference distance do from the transmitter, then for d > do , the free
space propagating E—field is given by

Two propagating waves arrive at the receiver: the direct wave that travels a distance d'; and the reflected
wave that travels a distance d”.

The electric field E TOT( d, t) can be expressed as the sum of equations for distances d’ and d” (i.e. direct
wave and reflected wave.

Diffraction:

Diffraction allows radio signals to propagate around the curved surface of the earth, beyond the horizon,
and to propagate behind obstructions. Although the received field strength decreases rapidly as a receiver
moves deeper into the obstructed (shadowed) region, the diffraction field still exists and often has sufficient
strength to produce a useful signal.

The phenomenon of diffraction can be explained by Huygen`s principle, which states that all points on a
wavefront can be considered as point sources for the production of secondary wavelets, and that these

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HKBK College of Engineering 18EC81 Wireless and Cellular Communications
wavelets combine to produce a new wavefront in the direction of` propagation. Diffraction is caused by the
propagation of secondary wavelets into a shadowed region. The field strength of a diffracted wave in the
shadowed region is the vector sum of the electric field components of all the secondary wavelets in the
space around the obstacle.

Fresnel Zone Geometry:

Consider a transmitter and receiver separated in free space as shown in Figure 3.10a. Let an obstructing
screen of effective height h with infinite width (going into and out of the paper,) be placed between them
at a distance d1 from the transmitter and d2 from the receiver. It is apparent that the wave propagating from
the transmitter to the receiver via the top of the screen travels a longer distance than if a direct line- of-sight
path (through the screen) existed. Assuming h << d1, d2 and h >>λ , then the difference between the direct
path and the diffracted path, called the excess path length (Δ) , can be obtained from the geometry of Figure
as

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Knife-edge Diffraction Model:

Estimating the signal attenuation caused by diffraction of radio waves over hills and buildings is essential
in predicting the field strength in a given service area. Generally, it is impossible to make very precise
estimates of the diffraction losses, and in practice prediction is a process of theoretical approximation
modified by necessary empirical corrections. Though the calculation of diffraction losses over complex and
irregular terrain is a mathematically difficult problem, expressions for diffraction losses for many

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HKBK College of Engineering 18EC81 Wireless and Cellular Communications

simple cases have been derived. As a starting point, the limiting case of propagation over a knife-edge gives
good insight into the order of magnitude of diffraction loss.

When shadowing is caused by a single object such as a hill or mountain, the attenuation caused by
diffraction can be estimated by treating the obstruction as a diffracting knife edge. This is the simplest of
diffraction models, and the diffraction loss in this case can be readily estimated using the classical Fresnel
solution for the field behind a knife edge (also called a half-plane).

Multiple Knife-edge Diffraction:

ln many practical situations, especially in hilly terrain, the propagation path may consist of more than one
obstruction, in which case the total diffraction loss due to all of the obstacles must be computed. Bullington
suggested that the series of obstacles be replaced by a single equivalent obstacle so that the path loss can be
obtained using single knife-edge diffraction models. This method, illustrated in Figure 3.15, oversimplifies
the calculations and often provides very optimistic estimates of the received signal strength. In a more
rigorous treatment, Millington et. al. gave a wave-theory solution for the field behind two knife edges in
series. This solution is very useful and can be applied easily for predicting diffraction losses due to two
knife edges. However, extending this to more than two knife edges becomes a formidable mathematical
problem. Many models that are mathematically less complicated have been developed to estimate the
diffraction losses due to multiple obstructions.

Scattering:

The actual received signal in a mobile radio environment is often stronger than what is predicted by
reflection and diffraction models alone. This is because when a radio wave impinges on a rough surface,
the reflected energy is spread out (diffused) in all directions due to scattering. Objects such as lamp posts

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HKBK College of Engineering 18EC81 Wireless and Cellular Communications

and trees tend to scatter energy in all directions, thereby providing additional radio energy at
a receiver. Flat surfaces that have much larger dimension than a wavelength may be modeled
as reflective surfaces. However, the roughness of such surfaces often induces propagation
effects different from the specular reflection described earlier in this chapter. Surface
roughness is often tested using the Rayleigh criterion which defines a critical height (hc) of
surface protuberances for a given angle of incidence i.e. given by

hc= λ/(8sinθi)

A surface is considered smooth if its minimum to maximum protuberance h is less than hc,
and is considered rough if the protuberance is greater than hc. For rough surfaces, the flat
surface reflection coefficient needs to be multiplied by a scattering loss factor, ρs, to account
for the diminished reflected field.

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The Broadband Wireless Channel: Fading

➢ Introduction: Path loss and shadowing attenuation effects due to distance or
obstacles. Fading is severe attenuation phenomenon in wireless channels likely for
short distance caused by the reception of multiple versions of the same signal. The
multiple received versions are caused by reflections that are referred to as multipath.
The reflections may arrive at very close to the same time. The multiple different paths
between the transmitter and receiver visualization shown in Figure 2.13

Figure 2.13: The channel may have a few major paths with quite different lengths, and
then the receiver may see a number of locally scattered versions of those paths

Fading effect: When some of the reflections arrive at nearly the same time, the combined
effect of those reflections shown in Figure 2.14. Depending on the phase difference
between the arriving signals, the interference can be either constructive or destructive
which causes a very large observed difference in the amplitude of the received signal even
over very short distances

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➢ The moving the transmitter or receiver even a very short distance can have a dramatic
effect on the received amplitude, even though the path loss and shadowing effects
may not have changed at all.
➢ Time-varying tapped-delay line channel model of fading: Either the transmitter or
receiver move relative to each other, the channel response h(t) will change. This
channel response can be thought of as having two dimensions as shown in Figure
2.15:
1. Delay dimension(𝜏)
2. Time-dimension(𝑡).

Figure 2.15: The delay 𝜏 corresponds to how long the channel impulse response lasts. The
channel is time varying, so the channel impulse response is also a function of time, i.e., h
(𝜏, t), and can be quite different at time (𝑡 + ∆𝑡) than it was at time t.

➢ Since the channel changes over distance (and hence time), the values of ℎ0, ℎ1, … ℎ𝑣
may be totally different at time t vs. time𝑡 + ∆𝑡. Because the channel is highly variant
in both the 𝜏 and t dimensions.
➢ The fundamental function used to statistically describe broadband fading channels is
the two-dimensional autocorrelation function, A(∆𝜏, ∆𝑡). The autocorrelation
function is defined as

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The above equation (6) is referred to as Wide Sense Stationary Uncorrelated Scattering
(WSSUS), which is the most popular model for wideband fading channels.

➢ Wireless channel Parameters:

➢ The key parameters to evaluate the wireless channels are

➢ Delay Spread and Coherence Bandwidth

➢ Doppler Spread and Coherence Time
➢ Angular Spread and Coherence Distance

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Delay Spread and Coherence Bandwidth:

➢ Delay Spread:
➢ The delay spread is mostly used in the characterization of wireless channels.
➢ It is a measure of the multipath richness of a communications channel.
➢ It specifies the duration of the channel impulse response h (𝜏, t).
➢ The delay spread is the amount of time that elapses between the first arriving path
(typically the line-of-sight component) and the last arriving (non-negligible) path.
➢ The delay spread can be found by inspecting A (∆𝜏, 0) by setting ∆𝑡=0 in the channel
autocorrelation function. It is often referred to as the Multipath Intensity Profile, or
power delay profile.
➢ - The maximum delay spread is 𝜏𝑚𝑎𝑥. Characterized wireless channel with number of
delay taps v will be needed in the discrete representation of the channel impulse
➢ response, since

Where 𝑇𝑠 is the sampling time

➢ Delay spread can be quantified through different metrics, although the most
common one is the root mean square (rms) delay spread.

➢ The formula above is also known as the root of the second central moment
of the normalized delay power density spectrum.
➢ The importance of delay spread is how it affects the Inter Symbol Interference (ISI).
➢ 𝜏𝑟𝑚𝑠 gives a measure of the "width" or "spread" of the channel response in time.
➢ A general rule of thumb is that 𝜏𝑚𝑎𝑥 ≈ 5𝜏𝑟𝑚𝑠

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➢ Coherence Bandwidth (Bc):

➢ It is a statistical measurement of the range of frequencies over which the channel
can be considered "flat"
➢ The Bc is the frequency domain dual of the channel delay spread.
➢ The coherence bandwidth gives a rough measure for the maximum separation
between a frequency f1 and a frequency f2 where the channel frequency response
is correlated. That is

➢ 𝜏𝑚𝑎𝑥 is a value describing the channel duration, Bc is a value describing the range
of frequencies over which the channel stays constant. Given the channel delay
spread, it can be shown that

➢ The important and prevailing feature is that Bc and 𝜏𝑟𝑚𝑠 are inversely related

Doppler Spread and Coherence Time:

➢ Delay spread and coherence bandwidth are parameters which describe the time dispersive
nature of the channel in a local area. However, they do not offer information about the time
varying nature of the channel caused by either relative motion between the mobile and
base station
➢ Doppler spread and coherence time are parameters which describe the time varying nature
of the channel in a small-scale region

➢ Doppler Spread (BD):

➢ Doppler spread is a measure of the spectral broadening caused by the time rate of
change of the mobile radio channel and is defined as the range of frequencies over
which the received Doppler spectrum is essentially non-zero.
➢ The Doppler power spectrum gives the statistical power distribution of the channel
versus frequency for a signal transmitted at just one exact frequency.
➢ Whereas the power delay profile was caused by multipath between the transmitter
and receiver, the Doppler power spectrum is caused by motion between the
transmitter and receiver
➢ The Doppler power spectrum is the Fourier transform of 𝐴𝑡(∆𝑡) is given by

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➢ When a pure sinusoidal tone of frequency fc is transmitted, the received signal

spectrum, called the Doppler spectrum.
➢ The spectrum components in the range fc – fd to fc + fd, where fd is the Doppler shift.
➢ The amount of spectral broadening depends on fd which is a function of the
relative velocity of the mobile, and the angle θ between the direction of motion of
the mobile and direction of arrival of the scattered waves.
➢ Maximum Doppler spread 𝑓𝐷 is given by

Where 𝑣 = maximum speed between the transmitter and

receiver, fc= the carrier frequency
c = the speed of light.
➢ As long as the communication bandwidth B << fc, the Doppler power spectrum
can be treated as approximately constant.

Coherence Time(TC)

➢ Coherence time Tc is used to characterize the time varying nature of the frequency
depressiveness of the channel in the time domain

➢ Coherence time is actually a statistical measure of the time duration over which
the channel impulse response is essentially invariant, In other words, coherence
time is the time duration over which two received signals have a strong potential
for amplitude correlation. Mathematically

➢ The coherence time and Doppler spread are also inversely related

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➢ Values for the Doppler spread and the associated channel coherence time for LTE
at Pedestrian, Vehicular, and Maximum Speeds are given in Table below for two
possible LTE frequency bands.

➢ Conclusion:
➢ If the transmitter and receiver are moving fast relative to each other and hence the
Doppler is large, the channel will changes its behaviour much more quickly than if
the transmitter and receiver are stationary.
➢ At high frequency and mobility, the channel may change up to 1000 times per
second, it results placing a large burden on
➢ Overhead channel and Channel estimation algorithms
➢ Making the assumption of accurate transmitter channel knowledge questionable.
➢ Additionally, the large Doppler at high mobility and frequency can also degrade
the OFDM subcarrier orthogonally

Angular Spread and Coherence Distance:

➢ Angular Spread(𝜽𝒓𝒎𝒔):

➢ It refers to the statistical distribution of the angle of the arriving energy.

➢ A large 𝜃𝑟 implies that channel energy is coming in from many directions,

whereas a small 𝜃𝑟𝑚𝑠 implies that the received channel energy is more focused.
➢ A large angular spread generally occurs when there is a lot of local scattering,
and this results in more statistical diversity in the channel.

➢ Coherence Distance (DC):

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➢ The coherence distance is the spatial distance over which the channel does not
change appreciably. The dual of angular spread is coherence distance.
➢ As the angular spread increases, the coherence distance decreases, and vice versa.

➢ An approximate rule of thumb between angular spread and coherence distance is

➢ Angular spread and coherence distance are particularly important in multiple

antenna (MIMO) systems.
➢ The coherence distance gives a rule of thumb for how far antennas should be
spaced apart, in order to be statistically independent.
➢ If the coherence distance is very small, antenna arrays can be effectively employed
to provide rich diversity

The Cellular Concept:

➢ AT&T proposed a core idea of cellular system in 1971.
➢ In cellular systems, the service area is subdivided into smaller geographic areas
called cells. Each cell served by their own lower-power Base Station (BS).
➢ Neighboring cells do not use same set of frequencies to prevent interference.
➢ In order to minimize interference between cells, the transmit power level of each
base station is regulated to be just enough to provide the required signal strength
at the cell boundaries.

Core cellular Principles: Small cells tessellate overall coverage area. User’s “handoff” as they
move from one cell to another. The same frequency channels can be reassigned to different
cells, as long as those cells are spatially isolated called “frequency reuse” concept. It increases
the cellular system capacity

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Fig 8.Simple cellular system architecture.

Frequency planning: It is required to determine a proper frequency reuse factor and a

geographic reuse pattern. Frequencies can be reused should be determined such that the
interference between base stations is kept to an acceptable level. The frequency reuse factor f
is defined as f ≤ 1, where f = 1 means that all cells reuse all the frequencies. Accordingly, f =
1/3 implies that a given frequency band is used by only 1 out of every 3 cells

Fig 9.Frequency reuse pattern.

➢ Co-cells and cluster: Co-cells are cells in cellular system which uses the same
frequency channel set. The reuse of the same frequency channels should be
intelligently planned in order to maximize the geographic distance between the co-
channel base stations. Figure 10 shows an example of hexagonal cellular system
model with frequency reuse factor f = 1/7. The group of cells which are using entire
frequency channels set are called “clusters”

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Figure 10: Standard figure of a hexagonal cellular system with f =1/7.

Cellular system capacity: The overall system capacity can increase by simply making the cells
smaller and turning down the power. In this manner, cellular systems have a very desirable
scaling property. As the cell size decreases, the transmit power of each base station also
decreases correspondingly. For example, if the radius of a cell is reduced by half when the
propagation path loss exponent is 4, the transmit power level of a base station is reduced by 12
dB (=l0log16 dB)

➢ Handoff: Since cellular systems support user mobility, seamless call transfer from
one cell to another should be provided. The handoff process provides a means of the
seamless transfer of a connection from one base station to another. Achieving smooth
handoffs is a challenging aspect of cellular system design.
➢ Advantages of cellular concept: Small cells give a large capacity advantage and
reduce power consumption and allows frequency reuse.
➢ Drawback of cellular system: As cell size decreases, the number of cells for the
same service area need more base stations and their associated hardware costs also
increases. It leads to frequent handoffs. Interference level increases and effect on
service efficiency.

Analysis of Cellular Systems

➢ The performance of wireless cellular systems is significantly limited by Co-
channel interference (CCI) and other cell interference (OCI) which comes from
other users in the same cell or from other cells.

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➢ The cellular systems performance (capacity, reliability) is measured by SIR of

the desired cell, i.e., the amount of desired power to the amount of transmitted
power.
➢ The spatial isolation between co-channel cells can be measured by defining the
parameter Z, called co-channel reuse ratio is given by
𝐷 3
𝑧= = √𝑓 (1)
𝑅

Where D = distance between the co-cells

R = radius of the desired cell
1/f = size of the cluster and inverse of the frequency reuse factor N, therefore
equation (1) becomes
𝐷
𝑍= = √3𝑁 (2)
𝑅

➢ Conclusion: As the cluster size N increases, CCI decreases, so that it improves the
quality of communication link and capacity. However, the overall spectral efficiency
decreases with the size of a cluster, so f should be chosen just small enough to keep
the received signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) above acceptable levels.
➢ Signal to Noise ratio (SNR) of cellular system: It is given by
𝑠 𝑆
= ∑𝑁𝑖
(3)
𝐼 𝑖=1 𝐼𝑖

Where S - Received power of desired signal

I 𝑖- Interference power from the ith co-cell base station
➢ The received SIR depends on the location of each mobile station, and it should be kept
above an appropriate threshold for reliable communication.
➢ The received SIR at the cell boundaries is of great interest since this corresponds to the
worst interference scenario.
➢ The received SIR for the worst case described in Fig 11 and its empirical path loss formula
given as

Where 𝜒𝑖 denotes the shadowing from the ith base station

∝ = path loss components.

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𝜒𝑜= lognormal distribution for the shadowing value.

Figure 11: Forward link interference in a hexagonal cellular system (worst case).

➢ Outage probability (P0): The outage probability that the received SIR falls below a
threshold can be derived from the distribution. If the mean and standard deviation of
the lognormal distribution are𝛼 and 𝜎 in dB, the outage probability is derived in the
form of Q function is given by

➢ Lower frequency reuse factor is typically adopted in the

system design to satisfy the target outage probability at the sacrifice of spectral efficiency

➢ Sectoring:
➢ It is a capacity expansion technique by keep the cell radius unchanged and seek
methods to decrease the D /R ratio.
➢ It is desirable a techniques to improve SIR without sacrificing so much bandwidth.
➢ Uses directional antennas by replacing a single Omni-directional antenna at the base
station. It provides interference reduction, hence S/I ratio increases.
➢ No capacity is lost from sectoring because each sector can reuse time and code slots,
so each sector has the same nominal capacity as an entire cell.
➢ The capacity in each sector is actually higher than that in a non-sectored cellular
system because the interference is reduced by sectoring. An illustration of sectoring
is shown in Figure 12.

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HKBK College of Engineering 18EC81 Wireless and Cellular Communications

Figure 12: Three-sector (120-degree) and Six-sector (60-degree) cells.

➢ In Figure 12a, if each sector 1 points the same direction in each cell, then the
interference caused by neighbouring cells will be dramatically reduced.
➢ An alternative way to use sectors is to reuse frequencies in each sector and the
time/code/frequency slots can be reused in each sector, but there is no reduction in
the experienced interference.As the number of sectors per cell increases the SIR also
increases, thus the capacity of cellular system increases.

➢ Advantages of sectoring:
1. It is an effective and practical approach to the OCI problem.
2. It is an antenna technique to increase the system capacity
➢ Drawback:
1. Sectoring increases the number of antennas at each base station, hence it
increases the implantation cost and the number of handoffs increases
2. It reduces trunking efficiency due to channel sectoring at the base station.
3. It also increases the overhead due to the increased number of inter sector
handoffs.
4. It causes inter sector interference as well as power loss
➢ New Approaches to other Cell Interference.
Following are other approaches to reduces cell interference
1. Use advanced signal processing techniques at the receiver and/or transmitter
as a means of reducing or cancelling the perceived interference.

Prof. Abdul Azeez, Asst.Prof, Dept. of ECE Page 24 of 25

HKBK College of Engineering 18EC81 Wireless and Cellular Communications

2. Use network-level approaches such as cooperative scheduling or encoding

across Base station. Adopt multi-cell power control and distributed antenna
technique

Prof. Abdul Azeez, Asst.Prof, Dept. of ECE Page 25 of 25