Chapter Three

 
 

 
Mobile Radio Channel Modelling & Mitigations
 
 
 
 
 

3.2 Mitigation Techniques for Fading Wireless Channels

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 Goal of the Lecture

 Radio channel is dynamic because of multipath fading and Doppler spread

 Fading cause the signal at the receiver to fade

 How to improve link performance in hostile mobile environment.

 Apart from better transmitter and receiver technology, mobile communications

require signal processing techniques that improve the link performance

 Mitigation techniques: Channel equalization, diversity, spread spectrum, interleaving,

channel coding,

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 Lecture Outlines

 Introduction

 Equalization Techniques

 Diversity Techniques

 Coding Techniques

 Summary

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 Used Acronyms

• DFE : Decision feedback equalizer

 

• ISI: Inter symbol interference

 

• FTF: Fast transversal filter

 

• LMS : least mean square

 

• ZF: Zero forcing

 

• RLS: Recursive least square

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 Introduction

 Mobile radio channel is particularly dynamic due to

 Multipath fading
 Doppler spread
 As a result, the channel has a strong negative impact on BER of any modulation and
transmission techniques
 To improve received signal quality in hostile mobile radio environment, we need
 Equalization
 Diversity
 Channel coding,
Each can be used independently or in tandem

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  Equalization: compensates for inter symbol interference (ISI) created by multipath in time
dispersive (frequency selective) channels.
 Recall pulse shaping filters that also compensate for ISI
 ISI is the result of frequency selective channel
 Equalizers must be adaptive since the channel is generally unknown and time varying
 It may be linear equalization or nonlinear equalizer

 Diversity: compensates for fast fading channel impairments, and is usually implemented by using
two or more receiving antennas.
 It is employed to reduce the depth and duration of the fades experienced by a receiver in a flat
fading or narrowband channel
 Idea: create independent (or at least highly uncorrelated) signal “channels” for communication
 Types of diversity: Spatial diversity, Frequency diversity, Time diversity, Polarization diversity
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 Spatial diversity: usually implemented by using two or more receiving antennas and widely used
 Channel Coding: improves mobile communication link performance by adding redundant
data bits in the transmitted message
 It is used by the Rx to detect or correct some (or all) of errors introduced by the channel in a
particular sequence of message bits (fading or noise).
 Post detection technique
Examples: Block codes and convolutional codes
 A general framework of fading effects and their mitigation techniques.

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 Equalization Techniques

 Intersymbol interference (ISI) caused by multipath in bandlimited (frequency selective)

time dispersive channels distorts the transmitted signal, causing bit errors at the receiver.
 ISI is one of the major obstacles to high speed data transmission over mobile radio
channels.
 If BS>BC of the radio channel (frequency selective fading), modulated pulses are
spread in time, causing ISI.
 An equalizer at the front end of a receiver compensates for the average range of expected
channel amplitude and delay characteristics.
 Mobile fading channels are random and time varying, equalizers must track the time-
varying characteristics of the mobile channel and therefore should be time varying or
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adaptive equalizers.
 Equalizers are widely used in TDMA systems
 Three factors affect the time span over which an equalizer converges:
 Equalizer algorithm, equalizer structure, and time rate of change of multipath
radio channel
 Two operating modes for an adaptive equalizer are:
 Training mode
 Tracking mode
 Adaptive equalizer training mode operation:
 Initially a known fixed length training sequence is sent by the Tx so that the
Rx equalizer may average to a proper setting.

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  Training sequence is typically a pseudo-random binary signal or a fixed prescribed bit
pattern.
 The training sequence is designed to permit an equalizer at the receiver to acquire the
proper filter coefficient in the worst possible channel condition.
 An adaptive filter at the receiver thus uses a recursive algorithm to evaluate channel and
estimate filter coefficients to compensate for the channel.

 Adaptive equalizer tracking mode operation:

 When the training sequence is finished the filter coefficients are near optimal.
 Immediately following the training sequence, user data is sent.
 When the data of the users are received, the adaptive algorithms of the equalizer tracks the
changing channel.
 As a result, the adaptive equalizer continuously changes the filter characteristics over time
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Mathematical Frame Work of an Equalizer

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 Equalizer is usually implemented at baseband or at IF in a receiver

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  The signal received by the equalizer is given by

 If the impulse response of the equalizer is heq(t), the output of the equalizer is

Ῡ(t) = d (t) * h (t) * heq (t) + nb (t) * heq (t) = d (t)* g (t) + nb(t) * heq (t)

With nb(t) equal to zero, to be y(t)=d(t),

 Hence the main goal of any equalization process is to satisfy this equation optimally.

In frequency domain it can be written as

Thus an equalizer is actually an inverse filter of the channel.

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 For frequency selective channel: to provide a flat composite received frequency

response and linear phase response;

 The equalizer enhances the frequency components with small amplitudes

 Attenuates the strong frequencies in the received frequency spectrum

 For time varying channel: the equalizer is designed to track the channel variations

so that the above equation is approximately satisfied.

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 Generic Adaptive Equalizer:

 Basic Structure : Transversal filter with N delay elements, N+1 taps, and N+1 tuneable
complex weights.
 Weights are updated continuously by an adaptive algorithm
 The adaptive algorithm is controlled by the error signal ek:

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 An adaptive equalizer is a time-varying filter that is retuned constantly
 In the block diagram:
 The subscript k represents discrete time index
 There is a single input yk at any time instant
 It is a transversal filter that has N delay, N+1 taps and N+1 tuneable multiplier
called weights
 The value of yk depends upon
 Instantaneous state of radio channel and specific value of noise

 The second subscript( k) of the weights show that they vary with time and are updated on a
sample by sample basis

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  The error signal ek
 Controls the adaptive algorithm
 The error signal is derived by comparing the output of the equalizer with some signal
dk which is either
 Replica of transmitted signal xk or
 Which represents a known property of the transmitted signal
 ek is used to minimize a cost function and iteratively update equalizer weights so as to
reduce the cost function
 The Least Mean Square (MSE) algorithm searches for the optimum or near optimum weight by
 Computing the error between the desired signal and the output of the equalizer and
minimizes it
 It is the most common cost function
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Adaptive Equalization Classification

Used to mitigate more

severe fading channel

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  Performance measures for an adaptive algorithm
 Rate of convergence-No of iterations for the algorithm
 Mis-adjustment-provides the quantative measure of square error
 Computational complexity and numerical properties
 Factors that dominate the choice of an equalization structure and its algorithm
 The cost of computing platform
 The power budget
 The radio propagation characteristics

 Algorithms types
 Zero Forcing (ZF)-combining channel and equalizer impulse response force to zero
 Least Mean Squares (LMS)-Minimization of MSE b/n desired o/p equalizer and actual i/p Eq.
 Recursive least square (RLS)-Significantly improves convergence of adaptive equalizers.
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 The speed of the mobile unit determines the channel fading rate and the Doppler spread

 Which is related to the coherent time of the channel directly

 The choice of adaptive algorithm, and its corresponding rate of convergence, depends on

the channel data rate and coherent time

 The number of taps used in the equalizer design depends on the maximum expected time

delay spread of the channel

 The circuit complexity and processing time increases with the number of taps and

delay elements

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 Diversity Techniques

 Diversity exploits the random nature of radio propagation by finding independent (or at
least highly uncorrelated) signal “channels or paths” for communication
 

 Idea: “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket”

 In fading channels, a signal power will fall below any given fade margin at finite
probability exists
 Send copies of a signal using multiple channels
 Time, frequency, space, antenna
 If one radio path undergoes a deep fade, another independent path may have a strong
signal

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 Assumption: Individual channels experience independent fading events
 By having more than one path to select from, SNR at a receiver may be improved (by as much
as 20 to 30 dB).
 Advantage: Diversity requires no training overhead
 It provides significant link improvement with little added cost
 Assume that we have M statistically independent channels
 This independence means that one channel’s fading does not influence, or is not
correlated with, another channel’s fading
 Examples: Using antenna (or space) diversity
 Microscopic diversity: Mitigates small-scale fading effects (deep fading)
 Macroscopic diversity: Reduces the large-scale fading (selecting different base stations), can
also be used for uplink
• Selecting an antenna which is not shadowed 22
Receiver selection diversity with M receivers
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 Types of Diversity

 Time diversity
 Repeatedly transmits information at time spacing that exceed the coherence
time of the channel, e..g., interleaver
 Spreading the data out over time & better for fast fading channel
 Frequency diversity
 Transmits information on more than one carrier frequency
 Frequencies separated by more than the coherence bandwidth of the channel will not
experience the same fads (eg., FDM)
 Also spread spectrum (spread the signal over a larger frequency bandwidth) or
OFDM (use multiple frequency carriers)
 Used to mitigate the frequency selective fading channel
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 Space diversity
 Transmit information on spatially uncorrelated channels
 Requires multiple antennas at transmitter and/or receiver
• Example: MIMO, SIMO, MISO, virtual antenna systems
 Multipath fading changes quickly over space
• Hence, the signal amplitude received on the different antennas
can have a low correlation coefficient
 Space diversity doesn’t require additional
• Signals to be transmitted
• Bandwidth for transmission 25
  Reception methods for space diversity includes:
• Selection combining
• Maximal-ratio combining
• Equal gain combining
Selection Combining
 The receiver branch, having the highest
instantaneous SNR, is connected to the demodulator
 The antenna signals themselves could be sampled
and the best one sent to a single demodulation
 Simple to implement but does not use all of the
possible branches
 SNR = 𝛤 = 𝐸𝑏 𝑎2
𝑁𝑜

Generalized receiver block diagram for selection diversity

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 Instantaneous SNR is usually defined as =instantaneous signal power

 The probability density function is given by

𝛾𝑖
 𝑝 ( 𝛾 𝑖) = 1 𝑒 − 𝛤
𝛤

 The probability that any single branch has an instantaneous SNR less
than some defined threshold ϒ is

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 Maximum Ratio Combining

 The received signals are weighted with respect to their SNR and then summed
 

 Principle: Combine all the signals from all of the M branches in a co-phased and
weighted manner so as to have the highest SNR at the receiver at all times
 The control algorithms for setting the gains and phases for MRC are similar to those
required in equalizer
 Need time to converge & performance is as good as the channel
 Generalized receiver block diagram for MRC

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 Equal Gain Combining
 In equal gain combining
 The branch weights are all set to unity but the signals from each are co-phased to provide equal gain
combining diversity
 Co-phased signals are then add together
 All the received signals are summed coherently.
 This allows the receiver to exploit signals that are simultaneously received on each branch
 In certain cases, it is not convenient to provide for the variable weighting capability as in MRC

 The probability of producing an acceptable signals from a number of unacceptable inputs is still retained
 The performance is marginally inferior to maximal ratio combining and superior to selection combining

Figure : Equal Gain Combining 29

 Channel Coding Techniques

 It is used by the Rx to detect or correct some (or all) of the errors introduced by the channel (Post
detection technique)
 It improves mobile communication link performance by adding redundant data bits in the
transmitted message
 Mainly for error control and classified as block or convolutional codes
 Block Codes: examples
• FEC codes, Hamming Codes, Hadamard Codes
• Golay Codes, Cyclic Codes, BCH cyclic, Reed-Solomon Codes
 Convolutional codes: Here the output of the FEC encoder can be viewed as the convolution of the
input bit stream and the impulse response of the encoder. Which is a time invariant polynomial.
 A convolutional code is described by a set of rules by which the encoding of k data bits into n-
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coded data (n, k)
 The ratio of k/n is typically called the code rate, this ratio determines the amount of additional
redundancy inserted into the code word.
 The smaller the code rate the more parity bits are inserted into the data stream.

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 Summery

 Equalizers attempt to make the discrete time impulse response of the channel ideal
 Channels act as filters that cause both amplitude and phase distortion of signals
 Transmitters and receivers can be designed as filters to compensate for non-ideal channel
behavior
 Training sequences can be used to adapt equalizer weights
 Multiple techniques are available for setting filter tap weights
 Zero forcing
 Least mean squares
 Recursive least squares

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 Diversity is one technique to combat fading in wireless channel
 Time diversity: Used when channels spacing is greater than the coherence time of the channel
 Repeating transmission in time correlated channel brings little advantage
 Good with fast fading channels
 Frequency diversity: used when channels frequency separation is greater than the coherence
bandwidth of the channel
 Spatial diversity requires multiple antennas
E.g., MIMO and virtual antenna systems
 Finally channel coding is mainly used for error control

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