Chapter 5

Mobile Radio Propagation:

Small-Scale Fading and Multipath
Sections:

5.1. Small-Scale Multipath Propagation

5.2. Types of Small-Scale Fading
5.1. Small-Scale Multipath Propagation
 Small-scale fading is 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, called
multipath waves, which arrive at the receiver at
slightly different times.
 Multipath waves combined at the receiver
antenna to give a resultant signal which can vary
widely in amplitude and phase.
 Multipath in the radio channel creates small-
scale fading effects.
Cont…
 The three most important effects are:
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 (echoes) caused by multipath
propagation delays.
 In built-up urban areas, fading occurs because the
height of the mobile antennas are well below the
height of surrounding structures, so there is no single
line-of-sight path to the base station.
Cont…
 The incoming radio waves arrive from different directions
with different propagation delays.
 The signal received by the mobile at any point in space may
consist of a large number of plane waves having randomly
distributed amplitudes, phases, and angles of arrival.
 These multipath components combine vectorially at the
receiver antenna, and can cause the signal received by the
mobile to distort or fade.
 Even when a mobile receiver is stationary, the received
signal may fade due to movement of surrounding objects in
the radio channel.
Cont…
 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.
 The spatial variations of the resulting signal are seen as
temporal variations by the receiver as it moves through
the multipath field.
 Due to the constructive and destructive effects of
multipath waves summing at various points in space, a
receiver moving at high speed can pass through several
fades in a small period of time.
Cont…
 In a more serious case, a receiver may stop at a particular
location at which the received signal is in a deep fade.
 Due to the relative motion between the mobile and the
base station, each multipath wave experiences an apparent
shift in frequency.
 The shift in received signal frequency due to motion is
called the Doppler shift.
 Doppler shift is directly proportional to the velocity and
direction of motion of the mobile with respect to the
direction of arrival of the received multipath wave.
Factors Influencing Small-Scale Fading
1. Multipath propagation
2. Speed of the mobile
 Doppler shift will be positive or negative depending on
whether the mobile receiver is moving toward or away
from the base station.
3. Speed of surrounding objects
4. The transmission bandwidth of the signal
 If the transmitted radio signal bandwidth is greater than the
"bandwidth" of the multipath channel, the received signal
will be distorted, but the received signal strength will not
fade much over a local area (i.e., the small-scale signal fading
will not be significant).
 5.2. Types of Small-Scale Fading
 The following figure shows types of small scale fading.
Fading Effects Due to Multipath lime Delay Spread

 Time dispersion due to multipath causes the

transmitted signal to undergo either flat or frequency
selective fading.
1. Flat fading
 If the mobile radio channel has a constant gain and
linear phase response over a bandwidth which is
greater than the bandwidth of the transmitted signal,
then the received signal will undergo flat fading.
 Historically the most common type of fading
described in the technical literature.
 Cont…
 the multipath structure of the channel is such that the
spectral characteristics of the transmitted signal are
preserved at the receiver.
 The strength of the received signal changes with time, due
to fluctuations in the gain of the channel caused by
multipath.
2. Frequency Selective Fading
 If the channel possesses a constant-gain and linear phase
response over a bandwidth that is smaller than the
bandwidth of transmitted signal, then the channel creates
frequency selective fading on the received signal.
 Cont…
 The channel impulse response has a multipath delay
spread which is greater than the reciprocal bandwidth
of the transmitted message waveform.
 The received signal includes multiple versions of the
transmitted waveform which are attenuated (faded) and
delayed in time, and hence the received signal is
distorted.
 Frequency selective fading is due to tine dispersion of
the transmitted symbols within the channel.
Cont…
 Frequency selective fading channels are much more
difficult to model than flat fading channels since each
multipath signal must be modeled and the channel
must be considered to be a linear filter.
 Frequency selective fading is caused by multipath delay
which approach or exceed the symbol period of the
transmitted symbol.
 Frequency selective fading channels are also known as
wideband channels since the bandwidth of the signal is
wider than the bandwidth of the channel impulse
response.
 Fading Effects Due to Doppler Spread
1. Fast Fading
 the channel impulse response changes rapidly within
the symbol duration.
 the coherence time of the channel is smaller than the
symbol period of the transmitted signal.
 increases with increasing Doppler spread relative to
the bandwidth of the transmitted signal.
2. Slow Fading
 the channel impulse response changes at a rate much
slower than the transmitted baseband signal.
Cont…
 The velocity of the mobile (or velocity of objects in the
channel) and the baseband signaling determines
whether a signal undergoes fast fading or slow fading.
 It should be emphasized that fast and slow fading deal
with the relationship between the time rate of change in
the channel and the transmitted signal, and not with
propagation path loss models.
Summary
 Small-Scale Multipath Propagation
 Factors Influencing Small-Scale Fading
 Types of Small-Scale Fading
 Fading Effects Due to Doppler Spread