2: The Wireless Channel

Fundamentals of
Wireless Communication
David Tse

Wireless Fundamentals, May 27-28, Qualcomm Inc.

2: The Wireless Channel

1. Introduction

Wireless Fundamentals, May 27-28, Qualcomm Inc.

 2: The Wireless Channel

Course Objective
• Past decade has seen a surge of research activities in
the field of wireless communication.
• Emerging from this research thrust are new points of
view on how to communicate effectively over wireless
channels.
• The goal of this course is to study in a unified way the
fundamentals as well as the new developments.
• The concepts are illustrated using examples from
several modern wireless systems (GSM, IS-95, CDMA
2000 1x EV-DO, Flash OFDM, LTE, ArrayComm
systems.)

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2: The Wireless Channel

System Implementation

Capacity limits and

communication techniques

Channel modelling

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 2: The Wireless Channel

Course Outline
Part I: Basics

2. The Wireless Channel

3. Diversity

4. Multiple Access and Interference Management

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2: The Wireless Channel

Course Outline (2)

Part II: Modern Wireless Communication

5. Successive Interference Cancellation and

Opportunistic Communication

6. MIMO I: Spatial Multiplexing and Channel

Modeling

7. MIMO II: Capacity and Multiplexing

Architectures
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Assumed background:

• Basic signals and systems, linear algebra and

probability.

• Basic digital communications.

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2: The Wireless Channel

This course only gives an overview of the ideas.

Full details can be found in:

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2: The Wireless Channel

2. The Wireless Channel

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2: The Wireless Channel

Wireless Mulipath Channel

Channel varies at two spatial scales:

large scale fading
small scale fading
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 2: The Wireless Channel

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, less for

communication system design.

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 2: The Wireless Channel

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 about 0.3 m for
900 Mhz cellular.
• For vehicular speeds, this translates to channel variation
of the order of 100 Hz.
• Primary driver behind wireless communication system
design.

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 2: The Wireless Channel

Game plan
• We wish to understand how physical parameters such as
– carrier frequency
– mobile speed
– bandwidth
– delay spread
– angular spread
impact how a wireless channel behaves from the
communication system point of view.
• We start with deterministic physical model and progress
towards statistical models, which are more useful for
design and performance evaluation.

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 2: The Wireless Channel

Physical Models
• Wireless channels can be modeled as linear time-
varying systems:

where ai(t) and i(t) are the gain and delay of path i.
• The time-varying impulse response is:

• Consider first the special case when the channel is time-

invariant:

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2: The Wireless Channel

Two-path Example

h( ¿) = a1 ±( ¿ ¡ ¿1 ) + a2 ±( ¿ ¡ ¿2 )

H ( f ) = a1 e¡ j 2¼f ¿1 + a2 e¡ j 2¼f ¿2

jH ( f ) j = ja1 + a2 e¡ j 2¼f ( ¿2 ¡ ¿1 ) j
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 2: The Wireless Channel

Channel Variation
• Channel varies significantly when
2¼f ( ¿2 ¡ ¿1 )
varies by .

• For fixed location of user, this occurs when

frequency f changes by 1/(2Td), where
Td = ¿2 ¡ ¿1 = delay spread

• For fixed f, this occurs when the location

changes on the order of wavelength  := c/f.
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2: The Wireless Channel

Coherence Bandwidth and Distance

• Coherence bandwidth Wc inversely proportional
to delay spread Td.
(eg. Td » 1  s outdoor)

• Coherence distance proportional to carrier

wavelength, inversely proportional to carrier
frequency.
(eg. fc = 900 MHz,  = 0.3 m)

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2: The Wireless Channel

Discrete-time Baseband Channel

• Transmissions happens at radio frequency and
is analog.
• Processing happens at baseband and is digital.
• What is the discrete-time baseband equivalent
channel?

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2: The Wireless Channel

Passband to Baseband Conversion

• Communication takes place at
• Processing takes place at baseband

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2: The Wireless Channel

Complex Baseband Equivalent Channel

• The frequency response of the system is shifted
from the passband to the baseband.

• Each path is associated with a delay and a

complex gain.
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Modulation and Sampling

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 2: The Wireless Channel

Multipath Resolution
Sampled baseband-equivalent channel model:

where hl is the l th complex channel tap.

and the sum is over all paths that fall in the delay bin

System resolves the multipaths up to delays of 1/W .

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 2: The Wireless Channel

Sampling Interpretation
• hl is the l th sample of the
low-pass version of the
channel response hb(¢).

• Contribution of the i th
path is the projection of
aib (-i) onto sinc(W-l).

• Contribution is significant
only when i is close to
l/W.

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2: The Wireless Channel

Flat and Frequency-Selective Fading

• Fading occurs when there is destructive interference of
the multipaths that contribute to a tap.

Delay spread
Coherence bandwidth

single tap, flat fading

multiple taps, frequency selective

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2: The Wireless Channel

Effective channel depends on both physical environment and bandwidth!

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 2: The Wireless Channel

Time Variations: Two-path Example

v= 60 km/hr, fc = 900 MHz:

direct path has Doppler shift of -50 Hz

reflected path has shift of +50 Hz
Doppler spread = 100 Hz

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2: The Wireless Channel

Time Variations: General

Doppler shift of the i th path

Doppler spread

Coherence time

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2: The Wireless Channel

Doppler Spread

Doppler spread is proportional to:

• the carrier frequency fc and the speed v;
• the angular spread of arriving paths.

where i is the angle the direction of motion

makes with the i th path.
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Types of Channels

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Typical Channels are Underspread

• Coherence time Tc depends on carrier frequency
and vehicular speed, of the order of milliseconds
or more.
• Delay spread Td depends on distance to
scatterers, of the order of nanoseconds (indoor)
to microseconds (outdoor).
• Channel can be considered as time-invariant
over a long time scale.

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 2: The Wireless Channel

Statistical Models
• Design and performance analysis based on statistical
ensemble of channels rather than specific physical
channel.

• Rayleigh flat fading model: many small scattered paths

Complex circular symmetric Gaussian .

Squared magnitude is exponentially distributed.
• Rician model: 1 line-of-sight plus scattered paths

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 2: The Wireless Channel

Correlation over Time

• Specified by autocorrelation
function and power spectral
density of fading process.
• Example: Clarke’s (or Jake’s)
model.

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 2: The Wireless Channel

Additive Gaussian Noise

• Complete baseband-equivalent channel model:

• Special case: flat fading:

• Will use this throughout the course.

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Summary
• We have understood how time and frequency
selectivity of wireless channels depend on key
physical parameters.

• We have come up with statistical channel

models that are useful for analysis and design.

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