Observations and Conclusions from a Three Year Digital Radio Field Experiment in Australia

For the purpose of investigating the performance of digital radio systems, Telecom Australia established and conducted over a three year period (1982-1984), a 140 Mbit/s 16 QAM digital radio field experiment. In parallel with this experiment, analytical work was undertaken to develop an "outage prediction method" to assist with route design. This paper presents the observations and conclusions drawn from this work. Emphasis is placed on the aspects which relate to system design. We show that for digital radio outage prediction, a radio path can be characterized for multipath fading by the probability of occurrence of multipath fading and the mean echo delay, while the radio equipment can be characterized by a set of normalized parameters. The performance improvements achieved through the use of adaptive equalization and space-diversity are highlighted. Finally, we present a methodology for considering the performance of digital radio systems in the presence of interference and thermal noise, and present results for system performance with adjacent channel interference.     

Degradation in FH-MFSK mobile radio system capacity due to Rayleighfading and log-normal shadowing

A frequency-hopped multilevel frequency-shift-keying (FH-MFSK) system has been proposed for digital mobile radio communications. The performance of the system is evaluated by studying average probability of error caused by transmission impairments. The degradation in performance due to Rayleigh fading and log-normal shadowing environments is determined. With perfect transmission, where the degradation in the system performance is due to mutual interference between users only, the system can accommodate up to 209 simultaneous users at an average bit error rate of 10^-3. The system capacity decreases to 110 users as a result of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), mutual interference, frequency-selective Rayleigh fading, and log-normal shadowing with normalized area mean of 20 dB and standard deviation of 6 dB     

Simultaneous measurements of L- and S-band tree shadowing forspace-Earth communications

This paper presents results from simultaneous L- and S-band slant-path fade measurements through a pecan, a cottonwood, and a pine tree employing a tower-mounted transmitter and dual-frequency receiver. A single circularly polarized antenna was used at each end of the link. The objective was to provide information for personal communications satellite uplink power control design on the correlation of tree shadowing between frequencies near 1620 and 2500 MHz. Fade time series obtained simultaneously did not exhibit any significant correlation, but their means were weakly correlated (r² from 0.31 to 0.58). Fades were measured along a 10-m lateral distance with 5-cm spacing. Instantaneous fade differences between L- and S-band exhibited a normal distribution with means usually near 0 dB and standard deviations from 5.2 to 7.5 dB. The cottonwood tree was an exception with 5.4 dB higher average fading at S- than at L-band. More than 90% of the spatial variations occurred with periods larger than 1~2 wavelengths. Simultaneous swept measurements over 160-MHz spans showed that the standard deviation of the power levels as function of frequency increased from about 1 dB at locations with mean fades less than 4 dB to near 6 dB at locations with mean fades of 20 dB. For a 5-dB fade, the central 90% of fade slopes were within a band of 0.7 dB/MHz at L- and 1.9 dB/MHz at S-band     

Measured Frequency Diversity Improvement for Digital Radio

This paper presents the measured frequency diversity improvement factor for 6 GHz 16-QAM 90 Mbit/s digital radio on the 26.4 mi Atlanta-Palmetto path in Georgia. Two channels with a center frequency separation of 59.3 MHz were used in a one-by-one frequency diversity experiment. The 1980 data and the 1982 data indicate a frequency diversity improvement factor of 100 and 45, respectively, at the outage threshold of 10^-3BER. This is in contrast to the improvement factor of 9 predicted for analog FM radio at the same fade margin. The measured one-by-one frequency diversity improvement factor is comparable to the measured space diversity improvement factor with 30 ft antenna spacing on the same path. We conclude that 1) frequency diversity can provide a large improvement factor for digital radio, 2) as an alternative to space diversity, frequency diversity can provide substantial cost savings for digital radio routes, and 3) the frequency diversity calculation based on analog FM radio experience is too conservative (i.e., pessimistic) for digital radio application. These experimental findings are in agreement with recent advances in digital radio diversity modeling. Digital radio performance depends heavily on the multipath dispersion in the channel. The measured data indicate that the power fade depths in the two channels are highly correlated, whereas the multipath dispersion in the two channels is decorrelated. This correlation difference provides insight into the measured large frequency diversity improvement factor for digital radio.     

Etude comparative des techniques d’égalisation synchrone et fractionnée pour transmissions numériques par voie hertzienne

The paper presents a comparative study of synchronous and fractionally-spaced equalization techniques, in a multipath fading environment. The outage performance of 64-QAM and 256-qam 140 Mbit/s digital radio systems equipped with linear and decision feedback equalizers is evaluated. Results are given in terms of net fade margin improvement versus flat fade margin. They show that the 2 to 3 dB gain obtained for linear equalizers vanishes with non-linear equalizers.     

Fade measurements at L-band and UHF in mountainous terrainfor land mobile satellite systems

Fading results related to land mobile satellite communications at L-band (1502 MHz) and UHF (870 MHz) are described. These results were derived from an experiment performed in a series of canyon passes in the Boulder, Colorado region of the USA. The experimental configuration involved a helicopter as the source platform, which maintained a relatively fixed geometry with a mobile van containing the receiver and data-acquisition system. An unobstructed line of sight between the radiating sources and the receiving van was, for the most part, also maintained. In this configuration, the dominant mechanism causing signal fading (or enhancement) is a result of multipath. The resulting fade distributions demonstrated that at the 1% and 5% levels, 5.5 and 2.6 dB fades were on the average exceeded at L-band and 4.8 and 2.4 dB at UHF, respectively, for a path elevation angle of 45°. The canyon results as compared with previous roadside-tree-shadowing results demonstrate that the deciding factor dictating fade margin for future land mobile satellite systems is tree shadowing rather than fades caused by multipath     

A simple modulation scheme for error performance improvement oflow-deviation digital FM

The paper proposes a simple digital modulation scheme named LF (lowpass filtered)-π/2 TFSK. Since it is essentially a constant envelope modulation scheme, it can be applied to severely band-limited channels such as land mobile and satellite mobile radio channels. Its error performance is superior to that of MSK modulation in band-limited channels at the cost of a slightly wider bandwidth (approximately 1.06 times) than GMSK. The required E_b/N₀ with 2-bit differential detection at the error rate of 10^-5 is 2.3 dB smaller than that of GMSK in an additive Gaussian channel and 3 dB smaller at the average error rate of 10^-4 in a fast Rayleigh fading channel. The above result, obtained by an exact error rate analysis, was confirmed by laboratory experiments at a frequency of 880 MHz. The spectral characteristics were analyzed through computer simulations and the results were found to agree with those obtained from a hardware implementation     

Effect of Matrix Partitioning on Second Order Statistics of Fading Channels

In this paper, the expressions for level crossing rate and average fade duration of two-branch selection combining are derived using the proposed matrix partitioning based method for a space-diversity system using a two-branch horizontal linear antenna array at the mobile station. It has been observed that when the antennas are perpendicular to the direction of the vehicle motion, the average fade duration is not very much dependent on the antenna spacing and is almost identical to that for independent fading except for very small antenna spacing. On the other hand, when the antennas are parallel to the direction of the vehicle motion, the level crossing rate can be reduced below the value obtained for independent fading, although the average fade duration deteriorates, especially for small antenna spacing. Numerical results are presented and compared with the existing characteristic function based methods including Gaussian fluctuation effects.     

Comparative study of space-diversity techniques for MLSE receiversin mobile radio

Several space-diversity techniques combined with maximum-likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) are considered for time-division multiple-access (TDMA) digital mobile radio. Under the assumption that diversity paths fade independently, the Nth order diversity maximum-likelihood (ML) receiver is analyzed. Two categories of diversity receivers with MLSE are taken into account: the receivers performing diversity on the signal samples and those applying diversity inherently in the sequential algorithm. The simulation study was performed for standard global system for mobile communication (GSM) channel models. The results confirm the fact that even second-order diversity is a very powerful means improving the TDMA system performance     

BER performance of DQPSK in Nakagami fading with selection diversity and maximal-ratio combining

A new expression for the average bit-error rate (BER) of differential quadrature phase-shift keying in slow frequency-nonselective Nakagami fading is derived for a space-diversity receiver having a cascade arrangement of L groups of M-branch selection combiners and an L-branch maximal-ratio combiner (MRC). This allows the use of a large number of antennas, for performance improvement, and a small number of M inputs to the combiners, for low complexity. The average BER performance of the cascade receiver is investigated for different fading severity conditions characterized by the Nakagami m factor, and compared with the conventional MRC receiver. As the fading gets less severe (m increases), performance improvement over the conventional MRC scheme is only noticeable for the larger range of average signal-to-noise ratio.     

Decision Feedback Equalization for Multipath Induced Interference in Digital Microwave LOS Links

The performance of a 49-QPRS, 90 Mbit/s digital radio receiver equipped with a decision feedback equalizer (DFE) to counter multipath fading is investigated via computer simulation. The simulation includes the transmitted data, multipath fade model, receiver model, and DFE. The results indicate that a DFE equipped with five forward and five feedback taps can adequately compensate a 40 dB minimum-phase fade anywhere in the receiver passband. The study is extended to other receiver configurations including the use of space diversity and/or slope equalizers and the use of a transversal equalizer (TE) with the same delay-span in place of the DFE. The results indicate that the DFE equipped receiver outperforms the TE receiver and that still better performance may be achieved using a combination of space diversity and DFE.     

Design and Test of a Spectrally Efficient Land Mobile Communications System Using LPC Speech

A communication system was built and tested to operate in the land mobile VHF band (150-174 MHz) at a channel separation of only 6 kHz. The audio source was digitally encoded at 2.4 kbits/s using linear predictive coding (LPC). The speech data stream was transmitted by frequency shift keying (FSK) which allowed the use of class-C transmitters and discriminator detection in the receiver. Baseband filtering of the NRZ data resulted in a narrow transmitter spectrum. The receiver had a 3 dB bandwidth of 2.4 kHz which allowed data transmission with minimal intersymbol interference and frequency offset degradation. A 58 percent eye opening was found. Bit error rate (BER) performance was measured with simulated Rayleigh fading at typical 150 MHz rates. Additional tests included capture, ignition noise susceptibility, adjacent channel protection, degradation from frequency offset, and bit error effects upon speech quality. A field test was conducted to compare the speech quality of the digital radio to that of a conventional 5 kHz deviation FM mobile radio.     

Design and test of a spectrally efficient land mobile communications system using LPC speech

A communication system was built and tested to operate in the land mobile VHF band (150-174 MHz) at a channel separation of only 6 kHz. The audio source was digitally encoded at 2.4 kbits/s using linear predictive coding (LPC). The speech data stream was transmitted by frequency shift keying (FSK) which allowed the use of class-C transmitters and discriminator detection in the receiver. Baseband filtering of the NRZ data resulted in a narrow transmitter spectrum. The receiver had a 3 dB bandwidth of 2.4 kHz which allowed data transmission with minimal intersymbol interference and frequency offset degradation. A 58 percent eye opening was found. Bit error rate (BER) performance was measured with simulated Rayleigh fading at typical 150 MHz rates. Additional tests included capture, ignition noise susceptibility, adjacent channel protection, degradation from frequency offset, and bit error effects upon speech quality. A field test was conducted to compare the speech quality of the digital radio to that of a conventional 5 kHz deviation FM mobile radio.     

Laboratory Measurements and a Theoretical Analysis of the TCT Fading Channel Radio System

This paper documents the laboratory and theoretical performance of a pilot-aided digital radio system. The technique considered transmits a midband pilot tone to improve the receiver data detection performance in a multipath fading channel and is referred to as the tone calibrated technique (TCT). We report on the performance of a 860 MHz prototype system carrying 2.4 kbit/s data under Rician fading conditions. Both experimental and analytical results show that the error floor experienced with nonpilot-aided transmission methods is effectively removed by the TCT scheme, resulting in significant performance gains at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values. The paper also examines the TCT system performance under typical operating conditions and presents a new analysis of the TCT theoretical error probability.     

Design and Experimental Results for a Direct-Sequence Spread-Spectrum Radio Using Differential Phase-Shift Keying Modulation for Indoor, Wireless Communications

We report on our design and measurements that have been made for a direct-sequence spread-spectrum radio using differential phase-shift keying modulation for a wireless PBX. We describe the design and implementation of a transmitter and a receiver using a surface acoustic wave (SAW) filter matching the spread-spectrum code of a user. The receiver performance is within 1 dB of the theoretical performance of a differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) receiver in the presence of additive white Gaussian noise. We also show receiver performance in a multipath fading indoor environment with multipath fade notches of up to 50 dB depth. The indoor channel multipath fading can be overcome by using an equal gain diversity combiner which is suitable when DPSK modulation is used. We confirm that the indoor mean power level attenuation follows the inverse fourth power of the distance. Also, we investigate the multiple-access capability of the system by introducing an interfering transmitter with a different spread-spectrum code sequence.     

Pseudoerror Monitor for 16 QAM 140 Mbit/s Digital Radio

This paper presents the performance of a pseudoerror monitoring technique for a 16 QAM 140 Mbit/s digital radio in presence of multipath dispersive fading. The so-called pseudoerrors, generated by means of a threshold modification of two, namely, secondary receivers are entered into an extrapolating function to obtain a fast bit error ratio (BER) calculation. A counting time of 10 ms was retained in order to follow fading depth changes up to 100 dB/s and fading notch speeds up to 300 MHz/s approximately. We have considered three structures for the receiver: without equalization, with IF amplitude equalization, and decision feedback equalization (DFE). The results obtained show the estimated and real BER within a margin that includes the two recommended CCIR values: 10^-3and10^-6. In particular, the estimated signature obtained in the case of using IF equalization reveals that this fast BER calculation could be an effective choice to control a frequency diversity switch, even in the presence of a fading activity with rapid variations.     

一种DS-CDMA无线反向链路空间分集方案研究

本文利用自适应天线阵列分离出多径信号,利用RAKE消除多径衰落。导频位符号辅助(PSA)信道估计用来对RAKE的输入端进行加权,天线阵列的加权系数的自适应更新是采用RLS算法而得。结果表明,该方案具有很强的抗多径干扰和多址干扰的能力。     

Dispersion Signatures, a Statistically Based, Dynamic, Digital Microwave Radio System Measurement Technique

Outage in digital microwave radio systems during multipath fading is highly correlated with the channel amplitude dispersion. This characteristic is exploited in a new digital microwave radio system measurement technique which yields dispersion signatures. These dispersion signatures can be readily applied to assess the effects of time varying channels on digital radio equipment. Thus, dispersion signatures can be used for in-service monitoring of equipment operation during actual fading. Routine maintenance assessment and laboratory evaluation of digital microwave radio equipment can also be readily carried out. The laboratory evaluation results can be used for system design both with and without diversity.     

Transmission of high rate ATM packets over indoor radio channels

The design and performance of a high data rate modem that transmits asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) packets over indoor radio channels is discussed. A discrete Fourier transform (DFT)-based multicarrier modulation technique is used to mitigate intersymbol interface (ISI) caused by a multipath spread of up to 250 ns. A rate one-half channel code is used to combat fading. Computer simulation is performed to investigate the system performance for five different multipath intensity profiles. The system performance is compared using a differentially coherent scheme and a coherent scheme based on channel estimation. The effects of carrier frequency offset and some of the hardware nonlinearities are discussed. Using various channel codes, an signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 14-21 dB is required at an average bit error rate (BER) of 10^-5 to transmit a total of 155 Mb/s data over a bandwidth of 280 MHz