Diversity – RAYmaps

October 21, 2011June 7, 2012Channel Modeling, LTE, WiMAX

A Rayleigh Fading Simulator with Temporal and Spatial Correlation

Just to recap, building an LTE fading simulator with the desired temporal and spatial correlation is a three step procedure. 1. Generate Rayleigh fading sequences using Smith’s method which is based on Clarke and Gan’s fading model. 2. Introduce spatial correlation based upon the spatial correlation matrices defined in 3GPP 36.101. 3. Use these spatially and temporally correlated sequences as the filter taps for the LTE channel models. We have already discussed step 1 and 3 in our previous posts. We now focus on step 2, generating spatially correlated channels coefficients. 3GPP has defined spatial correlation matrices for the Node-B […]

October 3, 2011November 15, 2011Antennas, LTE, Network Planning, WiMAX

Antenna Radiation Pattern and Antenna Tilt

An introductory text in Communication Theory would tell you that antennas radiate uniformly in all directions and the power received at a given distance ‘d’ is proportional to 1/(d)^2. Such an antenna is called an isotropic radiator. However, real world antennas are not isotropic radiators. They transmit energy in only those directions where it is needed. The Gain of a antenna is defined as the ratio of the power transmitted (or received) in a given direction to the power transmitted in that direction by an isotropic source and is expressed in dBi. Although antenna Gain is a three dimensional quantity, […]

June 8, 2011September 29, 2014BER Performance

Alamouti Scheme

So we have seen that multiple transmit antennas provide the same gain as multiple receive antennas if the channel state information can be fed back to the transmitter. But what if the channel state information cannot be fed back to the transmitter (or it can be done but not quickly enough). The solution to this problem is the so called “Alamouti Scheme”. In this scheme two symbols are simultaneously transmitted from two transmit antennas and in the next time slot phase shifted versions of these two symbols are transmitted over the two transmit antennas. The channel is assumed to be […]

June 5, 2011November 15, 2011BER Performance

Transmit Diversity using Channel State Information

We saw that equal gain combining and maximal ratio combining result in tremendous improvement in bit error rate performance in a Rayleigh fading channel. These are receive diversity schemes i.e. schemes that work with multiple receive antennas. Now let us turn our attention to schemes that work with multiple transmit antennas. We know that the main aim of a combining scheme is to coherently add the signals. If the same signal is transmitted from multiple transmit antennas the resulting signals would not add up coherently when they arrive at the receiver (remember that each path introduces a random phase shift). […]

June 3, 2011November 15, 2011BER Performance

Maximal Ratio Combining in Rayleigh Fading

We just saw the advantage an equal gain combiner (a combining scheme that just adds the signals after co-phasing them) provides in a Rayleigh fading channel. Lets now look at a variant of this scheme called maximal ratio combining (MRC). In MRC the signals arriving at the receivers are weighted by the channel gains i.e. a stronger signal is weighted more than a weaker signal before combining. It must be noted that in an actual system the received signals are both scaled and phase shifted thus an MRC receiver multiplies the received signals by the complex conjugate of the channel […]

June 3, 2011November 15, 2011BER Performance

Equal Gain Combining in Rayleigh Fading

When wireless signals travel from a single transmit antenna to multiple receive antennas they experience different fading conditions. While signal from one path may experience a deep fade the signal from another path may be stronger. Therefore selecting the stronger of the two signals (selection combining, threshold combining) or adding the signals (equal gain combining, maximal ratio combining) would always yield much better results (lower bit error rate). However, there must be sufficient spacing between the different receive antennas for the received signals to be dissimilar (uncorrelated). In the simulation below we consider a 1-Tx, 2-Rx scenario. The signals arriving […]