Fading

About: Fading is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 55489 publications have been published within this topic receiving 1061665 citations. The topic is also known as: fading channel & shadow fading.

A simple transmit diversity technique for wireless communications

Abstract: This paper presents a simple two-branch transmit diversity scheme. Using two transmit antennas and one receive antenna the scheme provides the same diversity order as maximal-ratio receiver combining (MRRC) with one transmit antenna, and two receive antennas. It is also shown that the scheme may easily be generalized to two transmit antennas and M receive antennas to provide a diversity order of 2M. The new scheme does not require any bandwidth expansion or any feedback from the receiver to the transmitter and its computation complexity is similar to MRRC.

Cooperative diversity in wireless networks: Efficient protocols and outage behavior

Abstract: We develop and analyze low-complexity cooperative diversity protocols that combat fading induced by multipath propagation in wireless networks. The underlying techniques exploit space diversity available through cooperating terminals' relaying signals for one another. We outline several strategies employed by the cooperating radios, including fixed relaying schemes such as amplify-and-forward and decode-and-forward, selection relaying schemes that adapt based upon channel measurements between the cooperating terminals, and incremental relaying schemes that adapt based upon limited feedback from the destination terminal. We develop performance characterizations in terms of outage events and associated outage probabilities, which measure robustness of the transmissions to fading, focusing on the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime. Except for fixed decode-and-forward, all of our cooperative diversity protocols are efficient in the sense that they achieve full diversity (i.e., second-order diversity in the case of two terminals), and, moreover, are close to optimum (within 1.5 dB) in certain regimes. Thus, using distributed antennas, we can provide the powerful benefits of space diversity without need for physical arrays, though at a loss of spectral efficiency due to half-duplex operation and possibly at the cost of additional receive hardware. Applicable to any wireless setting, including cellular or ad hoc networks-wherever space constraints preclude the use of physical arrays-the performance characterizations reveal that large power or energy savings result from the use of these protocols.

Capacity of Multi‐antenna Gaussian Channels

Abstract: We investigate the use of multiple transmitting and/or receiving antennas for single user communications over the additive Gaussian channel with and without fading. We derive formulas for the capacities and error exponents of such channels, and describe computational procedures to evaluate such formulas. We show that the potential gains of such multi-antenna systems over single-antenna systems is rather large under independenceassumptions for the fades and noises at different receiving antennas.

On Limits of Wireless Communications in a Fading Environment when UsingMultiple Antennas

Abstract: This paper is motivated by the need for fundamental understanding of ultimate limits of bandwidth efficient delivery of higher bit-rates in digital wireless communications and to also begin to look into how these limits might be approached. We examine exploitation of multi-element array (MEA) technology, that is processing the spatial dimension (not just the time dimension) to improve wireless capacities in certain applications. Specifically, we present some basic information theory results that promise great advantages of using MEAs in wireless LANs and building to building wireless communication links. We explore the important case when the channel characteristic is not available at the transmitter but the receiver knows (tracks) the characteristic which is subject to Rayleigh fading. Fixing the overall transmitted power, we express the capacity offered by MEA technology and we see how the capacity scales with increasing SNR for a large but practical number, n, of antenna elements at both transmitter and receiver. We investigate the case of independent Rayleigh faded paths between antenna elements and find that with high probability extraordinary capacity is available. Compared to the baseline n = 1 case, which by Shannon‘s classical formula scales as one more bit/cycle for every 3 dB of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) increase, remarkably with MEAs, the scaling is almost like n more bits/cycle for each 3 dB increase in SNR. To illustrate how great this capacity is, even for small n, take the cases n = 2, 4 and 16 at an average received SNR of 21 dB. For over 99% of the channels the capacity is about 7, 19 and 88 bits/cycle respectively, while if n = 1 there is only about 1.2 bit/cycle at the 99% level. For say a symbol rate equal to the channel bandwith, since it is the bits/symbol/dimension that is relevant for signal constellations, these higher capacities are not unreasonable. The 19 bits/cycle for n = 4 amounts to 4.75 bits/symbol/dimension while 88 bits/cycle for n = 16 amounts to 5.5 bits/symbol/dimension. Standard approaches such as selection and optimum combining are seen to be deficient when compared to what will ultimately be possible. New codecs need to be invented to realize a hefty portion of the great capacity promised.

Digital communications

Abstract: Spread Spectrum It’s not just for breakfast anymore! Don't blame me, the title is the work of this month's guest columnist, Steve Bible, N7HPR (n7hpr@tapr.org). While cruising the net recently, I noticed a sudden bump in the number of times Spread Spectrum (SS) techniques were mentioned in the amateur digital areas. While QEX has discussed SS in the past, we haven't touched on it in this forum. Steve was a frequent cogent contributor, so I asked him to give us some background. Steve enlisted in the Navy in 1977 and became a Data Systems Technician, a repairman of shipboard computer systems. In 1985 he was accepted into the Navy’s Enlisted Commissioning Program and attended the University of Utah where he studied computer science. Upon graduation in 1988 he was commissioned an Ensign and entered Nuclear Power School. His subsequent assignment was onboard the USS Georgia, a trident submarine stationed in Bangor, Washington. Today Steve is a Lieutenant and he is completing a master’s degree in computer science at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. His areas of interest are digital communications, amateur satellites, VHF/UHF contesting, and QRP. His research area closely follows his interest in amateur radio. His thesis topic is Multihop Packet Radio Routing Protocol Using Dynamic Power Control. Steve is also the AMSAT Area Coordinator for the Monterey Bay area. Here's Steve, I'll have some additional comments at the end.