Question : What is Fading? Briefly different types of Fading?

Fading
Fading refers to variation in signal strength with respect to time as it is received at
the antenna from the transmitter at distant end. The variation can be result of
communication channel between the transmitter and receiver.

The figure above shows the different types of fading and the sub-categories. We
have tried to elaborate on each type of fading below and provide information on how
do they affect wave propagation.
1. Large Scale Fading: This refers to the attenuation of signal power due to obstacles
between the transmitter and receiver. It also covers the attenuation and fluctuations
of signal when the signal is transmitted over a long distance (usually in kilometres).
 Path Loss: It refers to the attenuation when a signal is transmitted over large
distances. Wireless signals spread as they propagate through the medium and
as the distance increases, the energy per unit area starts decreasing. This is a
fundamental loss that is independent of the type of transmitter and medium
 Shadowing: Shadowing is deviation of received power of electromagnetic
signal from average value.
• It result because of obstacles over the path between transmitter and receiver.
• It depends on geographical position as well as radio frequency of EM
(Electromagnetic) waves. As we know, EM Waves can penetrate through
various surfaces but at the cost of loss in power i.e signal attenuation. The
losses depend on the type of the surface and frequency of the signal.
 Generally, the penetration power of a signal is inversely proportional to the
frequency of the signal.

2. Small Scale Fading: This refers to the fluctuations in signal strength and phase
over short distance and small duration of time. It is also called Rayleigh Fading.
Small Scale Fading affects almost all forms of wireless communication and
overcoming them is a necessity to increase efficiency and decrease error.
 Fast Fading: It varies quickly with the frequency. Fast fading originates due
to effects of constructive and destructive interference patterns which is caused
due to multipath.
 Slow Fading: It does not vary quickly with the frequency. It originates due to
effect of mobility. It is the result of signal path change due to shadowing and
obstructions such as tree or buildings etc.
 Multipath Fading: It occurs when a signal reaches the receiver from various
path i.e. when multipath propagation takes place. Multipath fading can affect
all ranges of frequencies starting from low frequency to microwave and
beyond. It affects both the amplitude and the phase of the signal causing phase
distortions and Inter Symbol Interference (ISI). Multipath fading can affect
signal transmission in two ways:
o Flat Fading: In flat fading, all frequency components get affected
almost equally. Flat multipath fading causes the amplitude to fluctuate
over a period of time.
o Selective Fading: Selective Fading or Selective Frequency Fading
refers to multipath fading when the selected frequency component of
the signal is affected. It means selected frequencies will have increased
error and attenuation as compared to other frequency components of
the same signal. This can be overcome by techniques such as OFDM
 which spreads the data across the frequency components of the signal
to reduce data loss.

Question : What is diversity? Briefly different types of diversity technique?

Diversity
Diversity is a powerful communication receiver technique that provides wireless
link improvement at a relatively low cost. Diversity techniques are used in wireless
communications systems to primarily to decrease the effect of fading & to improve
performance over a fading radio channel.

In such a system, the receiver is provided with multiple copies of the same
information signal which are transmitted over two or more real or virtual
communication channels. Thus the basic idea of diversity is repetition or
redundancy of information. In virtually all the applications, the diversity decisions
are made by the receiver and are unknown to the transmitter.

Types of Diversity
Diversity in communication is classified as –
 Antenna or Space diversity
 Frequency Diversity
 Time Diversity
 Polarization diversity

1. Space Diversity or Antenna diversity

In Space diversity, there are multiple receiving antennas placed at different spatial
locations, resulting in different received signals. The received information signals,
can be combined suitably or the strongest of them can be chosen as the received
signal. Such a diversity technique is termed as Antenna or Space diversity.
Question : What is diversity? Discuss any Space diversity technique.
Space diversity reception methods can be classified into four catagories:
1. Selection diversity
2. Feedback diversity
 3. Maximal ratio combining
4. Equal gain diversity

Fig: Generalized block diagram for space diversity / Selection diversity

Question : Discuss Selection diversity and Maximal ratio combining diversity

Selection Diversity:
Selection diversity is the simplest diversity technique analyzed in selection. A block
diagram of this method is similar to that shown the figure, where m demodulators
are used to provide m diversity branches whose gains are adjusted to provide the
same average SNR for each branch. The receiver branch having the highest
instantaneous SNR is connected to demodulator. The antenna signals themselves
could be sampled and the best one sent to a signal demodulator. From the
demodulator we get the output after demodulation. In practice, the branch with the
largest (S + N)/ N is used, since it is difficult to measure SNR alone.
Feedback or scanning diversity:
Scanning diversity is very similar to selection diversity except that instead of always
using the best of M signals, the M signals are scanned in a fixed sequence until one
is found to be above a predetermined threshold. The comparator compares the
received signals with the preset threshold. The preset threshold is determined using
short term average of the received signals. The signal is then received in the
comparator until it falls below threshold and the scanning process is again initiated.
The resulting fading statistics are somewhat inferior to those obtained by the other
methods, but the advantage with this method is that it is very simple to implement-
only one receiver is required. A block diagram of this method is shown in below
figure.
 Figure: Basic form of scanning diversity

Maximal ratio combining:

In this method first proposed by Kahn, the signals from all of the M branches are
weighted according to their individual signal voltage to noise power ratios and then
summed. Figure shows a block diagram of the technique. Here, the individual signals
must be co-phased before being summed (unlike selection diversity) which generally
requires an individual receiver phasing circuit for each antenna element. Maximal
ratio combining produces an output SNR equal to the sum of the individual SNRs.
Thus, it has the advantage of producing an output with an acceptable SNR even when
none of the individual signals are themselves acceptable. This technique gives the
best statistical reduction of fading of any known linear diversity combiner. Modern
DSP techniques and digital receivers are now making this optimal form of diversity
practical.

Figure: Maximal ratio combining

Question : Discuss Equal gain combining diversity
Equal gain combining:
In certain cases, it is not convenient to provide for the variable weighting capability
required for true maximal ratio combining. In such cases, the branch weights are all
set to unity, but the signals from each branch are co-phased to provide equal gain
combining diversity. This allows the receiver to exploit signals that are
simultaneously received on each branch. The possibility of producing an acceptable
signal from a number of unacceptable inputs is still retained, and performance is
only marginally inferior to maximal ratio combining and superior to selection
diversity.
2. Frequency Diversity:
Frequency diversity is obtained by transmitting the same information on more than
one carrier frequency or transmitting the same signal over different carrier
frequency. In Frequency Diversity only one antenna is needed. This technique has
the disadvantage that it requires more bandwidth.

3. Time Diversity:
Time diversity is obtained by re-transmitting the same signal at separate interval of
time. One modern implementation of time diversity involves the use of the RAKE
receiver for spread spectrum CDMA.
Rake Receiver
A Rake Receiver is a radio receiver which is designed for the purpose to counter the
effects of multipath fading. Due to reflections from multiple obstacles in the
environment, the radio channel can consist of multiple copies of the transmitted
signal having different amplitude, phases or delays.
A rake receiver can resolve this issue and combine them. For this purpose, several
sub-receivers are used which are known as “fingers”. The idea of a basic rake
receiver was first proposed by Price and Green.
When the transmitter transmits the signal then it travels through the environment
which consists of various obstacles and the transmitted signal is reflected by them
and is received by the rake receiver from multiple paths. Rake receiver then feeds
them to different fingers (correlators). The receive signal is multiplied by time-
shifted versions of a locally generated code sequence for spread spectrum CDMA.
These signals are then combined, using the diversity technique called maximum
ratio combining. According to the maximum ratio combining principle, the SNR at
the output is the sum of the SNRs in the individual branches.
 4. Polarization Diversity:
Polarization Diversity is transmission and reception of two different orthogonally
polarized waves with one dual-polarized antenna or with two different antenna at the
transmitter and receiver.
Polarization diversity has been discussed for 20 years, but has become of real interest
only recently. The main reason for this shift is that the method does not require any
extra bandwidth or physical separations between the antennas. With polarization
diversity, only one dual-polarized antenna is used. However, the two polarizations
must be orthogonal, for example, horizontal/vertical or ±45¡ slanted, as shown in the
Figures. The method is based on the fact that two orthogonal polarizations provide
almost uncorrelated signals in a scattering environment.