On the Performance of GSM/EDGE Transmit Diversity Schemes when

Employing Dual-Polarized Antennas

Jyri H am al ainen, Risto Wichman , Jari Hulkkonen, Timo K ahk onen, Tero Korpi , Mikko S aily
Helsinki University of Technology, P.O. Box 3000, 02015 HUT, Finland

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Nokia Networks, P.O. Box 319, 90651 Oulu, Finland I. I NTRODUCTION not seen as a desired solution.

Abstract Base station antennas with cross-polarized

antenna branches are commonly used in mobile communication systems. It is known that the use of vertically and horizontally polarized base station antennas results in unbalance between received powers in mobile station, while the channels corresponding to 45 slanted, linearly polarized antennas are correlated. In this paper, we calculate the power unbalance and correlation between the channels in terms of channel crosspolarization and base station antenna properties. Furthermore, link level performance of transmit diversity techniques, suitable to GSM/EDGE radio access network, is simulated.

Uplink performance of the existing GSM/EDGE

systems can be enhanced by various well known multiantenna techniques. Improved uplink performance can be utilized efciently in the present networks if the downlink performance is also improved at the same time. Transmit diversity schemes that employ multiple transmit antennas in the base station and need only a single receiver antenna in the mobile station provide attractive solutions since the complexity requirements in the present mobile stations are strict, and therefore, advanced detectors with multiple receive antennas are

Transmit diversity techniques are effective when the correlation between the channels is low. Spatial diversity is a wellknown solution to decrease the correlation between antennas but a separation of sev-

The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 presents the system model, mean power analysis is carried out in Section 3,and examples of power correlations are given in Section 4. Section 5 summarizes the transmit diversity modes suitable to GSM/EDGE and provides link-level simulation results as a function of envelope correlation and power unbalance between the diversity branches. The paper is concluded in Section 6.

eral wavelengths is usually needed in base station. In practical systems, however, the most common at the

moment is a two-branch diversity, which can be implemented employing cross-polarized antenna branches

placed into a single antenna box and resulting in a

compact antenna system. It has been proposed that there is small, if any, performance loss from using

45 slanted crosspolarized antennas instead of spatially separated antennas when diversity receivers are employed [1], [2].

The performance analysis of the crosspolarized antennas is different from that employed in case of

spatially separated, copolarized antennas. The average received powers from spatially separated co

polarized antennas are assumed to be equal and cor-

relation between the signals depends mostly on the

antenna distance. In case of crosspolarized antennas, also the gain properties of antennas should be taken

into account [3]. In addition to base station antenna properties, the effect of channel crosspolarization and

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mobile antenna polarization needs to be considered [4]. In this paper we propose a model by which mean powers of signals with respect to vertical and horizontal polarizations can be computed. We also show how the correlation between the antenna branches can be deduced when dual-polarized antennas with nominal 45 inclination to vertical linear polarization are employed. These results are of theoretical nature and show the relationship between the base station antenna correlation and the properties of the physical channel, base station and mobile station antennas. Finally, we provide performance results for some simple twoantenna transmit diversity methods suitable to GSM/EDGE as a function of channel correlation.

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II. S YSTEM M ODEL station antenna systems consisting of have h1 = hV and h2 = hH while h1 = (hV + hH )/ 2, is studied in the following.

Consider a system utilizing dualpolarized transmit

antennas in the base station and a single receiver antenna in the mobile station. We study two basic base

1) Vertically and horizontally polarized antennas 2) Linearly polarized, 45 slanted from vertical Let us denote by h1 and h2 the channel impulse

responses corresponding to the rst and the second antenna system. Then, for the rst antenna system we

h2 = (hV hH )/ 2

for the second antenna system, where hV and hH

refer to vertically and horizontally polarized channel components, respectively. The same hV and hH can

be used to compare the given antenna systems only if the antenna response with respect to vertical and horizontal polarizations are the same in both systems. We adopt the model of [5] and assume that hV

and hH are uncorrelated complex zero-mean Gaussian

variables. Then the rst antenna system suffers from power unbalance between antenna branches while the second antenna system is corrupted by antenna correlation, and the connection between the two phenomena

Consider the complex antenna correlation c in case of second antenna system. We have
Power and Envelope Correlations

0.9 Power Correlation 0.8

Since component channels hV and hH are uncorrelated, E { h 1 h2 }

2

= (E{|hV | } E{|hH | })/2,

E{|h1 |2 } = (E{|hV |2 } + E{|hH |2 })/2 = E{|h2 |2 }.

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0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3

c =

E { h 1 h2 } . 2 E{|h1 | }E{|h2 |2 }

0.7 Envelope Correlation

0.2

0.1

The latter equality shows the well-known fact that

10

15 Power Unbalance [dB]

20

25

30

the expected mean power in 45 slanted antenna branches is equal. By combining the last three equations we obtain c = 1 , +1

Fig. 1.

Power and envelope correlations as a function of power

unbalance.

E{|hV |2 } PV , = E{|hH |2 } PH

(1)

which provides the connection between the power

III. A NALYSIS

OF

M EAN P OWERS

unbalance of the rst system and the complex antenna correlation of the second system.

The unbalance between PV and PH is studied

by adopting a two-dimensional version of the model proposed in [8]. We dene

Conventionally, the envelope correlation env is favoured to complex correlation when presenting per-

formance results. Therefore, we recall the connection between complex and envelope correlations [5], [6] env = 1 1 F , , 1, |c |2 1 , 4 2 2

PX () =

0 PX

0 BS PX (), pX (, )GX ()d = PX

(3)

(2)

X {V, H }, where GX () is the horizontal antenna power gain pattern, pX (, ) is the power azimuth spectrum seen by base station, is the direction of

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where |c |2 is the power correlation and F is the hypergeometric function, see [7], Section 15. Figure 1 illustrates the connection between power unbalance and envelope correlation. Conventionally, it is understood that env < 0.7 is necessary to achieve acceptable diversity gains. This limit is encountered when is around 10 dB. Relations (1) and (2) together with Figure 1 show that the most important task is to nd a proper model in order to calculate the mean powers PV and PH . Then it is an easy task to nd and the corresponding correlation. Finally we note that according to Figure 1, env |c |2 and there is not much difference whether results are presented in terms of envelope or power correlation.

0 arrival (DoA) of the signal and PX is the mean signal

power when using ideal base station antennas such that GX 1. The subscript X indicates that the corresponding variable is dened with respect to X -

polarization. The rst term on the right hand side of (3) contains

the effects from the physical channel and the mobile antenna while the second term depends on the base station antenna gain pattern and the power azimuth spectrum seen by base station. Power gain patterns with nominal 45 inclination to vertical linear po-

larization have been evaluated in [3] for a dualpolarized aperture coupled patch and a slanted dipole

Hence, the signal with vertical departing polarization is further divided into vertically and horizontally polarTotal Power

9 Normalized power [dB] Vertical Polarization 12

ized signal parts according to its arriving polarization.

Horizontal Polarization

15

18

21

24

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0 0 0 PX = PXX + PXY ,
30 45 60 75 90

The signal with horizontal departing polarization is decomposed in a similar manner. According to [5], mutual correlations between all four subchannels are low and can be neglected. Therefore, we obtain
0 PXY = E{|hXY |2 }.

27

(5)

30 90

75

60

45

30

15

0 15 Azimuth [deg]

The next step is to separate the effect of the physical channel from the effect of the mobile antenna properties. For that purpose we write
0 Ch MS PXY = PXY PY ,

Fig. 2. Power gain patterns for 45 slanted /2 dipole placed /8 wavelengths over an innite groundplane [3].

X, Y {V, H }.

MS Here PY denes the Y-polarized signal power capCh tured by the mobile station. The mean power PXY

conguration. Figure 2 recalls the power gain patterns

for 45 slanted /2 dipole placed /8 wavelengths over an innite groundplane [3]. The gure shows

corresponding to the physical channel is dened by using the cross-polarization power ratios XP RV H =
Ch PV V , Ch PV H

that GV /GH can be several decibels on sector edges.

This base station antenna specic property introduces

XP RHV =

Ch PHH , Ch PHV

unbalance between PV and PH . When employing 45 slanted antennas the unbalance can be directly

where the former ratio is the conventional cross polarization ratio. Furthermore, XP RHV is dened

mapped to the correlation, as noted in Figure 1, and

as a ratio between the expected powers of vertically and horizontally polarized ideal receive antennas when signal is transmitted employing an ideal horizontally polarized antenna. With the given notations we are able to write = BS () 1 + MS XP RV H 1 + XP RHV , (6) MS + XP RHV 1 + XP RV H

we note that the design of antenna gain patterns is an important task from diversity system performance point of view.

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The unbalance of (1) can be now written in the form = BS ()
0 PV , 0 PH

BS () =

BS PV () . BS PH ()

Since the unbalance BS (), introduced by the base station, can be calculated from (3) it remains to study

MS MS MS where MS = PV /PH . The mean powers PV and MS PH can be calculated in a similar manner as the BS BS mean powers PV () and PH () provided that required

0 0 the ratio between the mean powers PV and PH . If

the mobile antenna polarization is vertical, the ratio denes the cross-polarization power ratio (XPR) of

antenna gain patterns and three-dimensional channel model are known. IV. E XAMPLES We see from (6) that the ratio between PV and

the environment. However, since the mobile antenna polarization is not xed we need to further analyze the system. As in [5] we write hV = hV V + hV H ,

PH depends on the properties of the physical chan-

hH = hHH + hHV .

(4)

nel (parameters XP RV H and XP RHV ) and on the

properties of the transmit and receive antennas (parameters BS () and MS ). The conventional crosspolarization power ratio XP RV H has been studied in many measurement campaigns and a summary of

and horizontally polarized signals. Several alternatives to the power azimuth distribution has been proposed in the literature. For example, according to [9] Laplacian and Gaussian distributions can be used, depending on the environment and base station antenna height, p(, ) = CL e

the results can be found in [3]. Results indicate that in urban and sub-urban environments XP RV H varies between 0 and 12 dB. However, measurement results

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|| 2

for the ratio XP RHV are not easy to nd in the literature. Therefore, we concentrate on extreme cases MS = 1 and MS . The rst case occurs when the mobile antenna responses corresponding to vertical and horizontal polarizations are equal and the second case occurs when mobile antenna polarization is purely vertical. For the above-mentioned cases we have 1 = BS (), = BS ()XP R,

p(, ) = CG e

()2 22

Here is the deviation of the power azimuth spectrum, CL and CG are normalization constants, and the subscript referring to the signal polarization has been dropped out, because the same distribution function is used for both polarizations.

Consider now correlations for two examples where

base station antennas are 45 slanted /2 dipoles plane [3]. The rst example employs Laplacian power azimuth spectrum with = 5 , which corresponds to rural macrocell environment, where angular spreads tends to have moderate values. The second example uses Gaussian power azimuth spectrum with = 20 corresponding to urban macrocell environment where angular spreads tend to be higher. The mean powers
BS BS () are calculated by integrating (3) () and PH PV

placed /8 wavelengths over an innite ground-

where the subscript of XP R has been neglected to

emphasize that only the conventional XP R is needed. The rst case is advantageous from the diversity point

of view since only the unbalance introduced by the

base station antenna is considered, while the second

case also takes into account the effect of the physical channel. It is expected that the rst case is more

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is more or less random and the electric eld in the mobile antenna is coupled with the cover of the handset and also with the users head. The second case provides a kind of worst case and it may appear if a conventional vertical whip antenna is mounted on top of a car. We still need to study the ratio () before we
BS

common in practise since mobile antenna orientation

numerically. Figure 3 depicts the power correlation |c |2 when

= 5 . We note that the curve indicating the

lowest correlation corresponds to the system where the mobile antenna response with respect to vertical and horizontal polarizations is equal. Other curves provide the upper limit for correlation when a certain XP R is assumed. These worst cases occur when mobile antenna polarization is purely vertical. It is seen that the upper limit for power correlation is relatively high if the XP R in the physical channel

can calculate the correlations. We note that the power

azimuth spectrums pV (, ) and pH (, ) with respect to vertical and horizontal polarizations need not to be

the same. However, it is not easy to nd measurement results in the literature concerning the question. There-

is large. This is true especially at sector edges, where the antenna power gains with respect to vertical and horizontal polarizations have a large difference. In

fore we have selected a simple approach, where equal power azimuth spectrums are applied to both vertically

0.9

0.9

0.8

XPR = 9 dB

0.8

XPR = 9 dB

0.7 Power Correlation Power Correlation

0.7

0.6

XPR = 6 dB 0.5

0.4

0.3

XPR = 3 dB 0.2

0.1

XPR = 0 dB 0 80 60 40 20

0 Azimuth [deg]

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0.6 XPR = 6 dB 0.5 0.4 0.3 XPR = 3 dB 0.2 0.1 XPR = 0 dB 20 40 60 80 0 80 60 40 20 0 Azimuth [deg] 20 40

60

80

Fig. 3. Power correlation as a function of the mobile DoA assuming rural macrocell example with XP R = 0, 3, 6, 9 dB.

Fig. 4. Power correlation as a function of the mobile DoA assuming urban macrocell example with XP R = 0, 3, 6, 9 dB.

practise the difference in antenna gain patterns with

of the mobile station. Closed-loop transmit diversity modes are difcult to use in GSM/EDGE, because the standard does not support a fast reverse control channel for transmitting CSI as in, e.g., WCDMA. Therefore, we will concentrate in open-loop modes in the sequel. Antenna hopping (AH) and phase hopping (PH)

respect to vertical and horizontal polarizations depends

on the applied antenna design, and many commercial antennas have better balance between horizontal and vertical gain patterns than the slanted dipoles used here as an example.

In case of urban macrocell the deviation of the power azimuth spectrum is larger than in rural case.

are two wellknown open-loop methods suitable to GSM/EDGE. In antenna hopping the transmit antenna is changed during the interleaving period resulting in an increased channel diversity which can be converted into a performance gain through the channel coding. Similarly, phase hopping provides diversity gain through interleaving and channel coding. In GSM/EDGE, both AH and PH are done burstwise. In addition to antenna and phase hopping the so-

Therefore, the variation of the correlation is smaller and extremely high correlations are rare as seen from

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Figure 4. Finally, we note that power correlations of Figures 3 and 4 corresponding to 45 slanted base station antenna system can be converted into power unbalances of the rst antenna system consisting of vertically and horizontally polarized antennas by using the curve in Figure 1. V. T RANSMIT D IVERSITY
IN

called delay diversity (DD) provides an attractive solution, where the same signal is transmitted from both antennas with a certain delay [10]. The diversity gain from delay diversity is due to the increased multipath diversity, and the optimal delay depends on the channel prole and the receiver implementation, but in practise 1 1.5 symbol period gives close to optimal perfor-

GSM/EDGE

In general, transmit diversity techniques can be

divided into open-loop and closed-loop modes, where the latter technique employs partial channel state in-

formation (CSI) in the transmitter to adjust the signals transmitted from multiple base station antennas such

that they combine coherently in the receive antenna

mance in most cases. The usage of delay diversity is

Delay Diversity + Phase Hopping 4 Correlation Unbalance 3.5

3.5 4

Antenna Hopping Correlation Unbalance

Diversity gain [dB]

Diversity gain [dB]

2.5

1.5

0.5

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2 1.5 1 0.5 0

2.5

0 0/0

0.1/3.0

0.3/5.6 0.5/8.0 0.7/10.9 Envelope correlation / Power unbalance (dB)

0.9/16.4

1/inf

0.5 0/0

0.1/3.0

0.3/5.6

0.5/8.0

0.7/10.9

0.9/16.4

1/inf

Envelope correlation / Power unbalance (dB)

Fig. 5.

Diversity gain of delay diversity + phase hopping against

Fig. 6.

Diversity gain of antenna hopping against single antenna

single antenna transmission (AMR12.2).

transmission (AMR12.2).

totally transparent to the receiver, and therefore, DD

that the DD/PH is more sensitive to antenna correlation than to power unbalance, while the opposite is true in case of antenna hopping. The performance of both DD/PH and AH rapidly decreases when correlation is larger than 0.7. Fortunately, according to Figures 3 and 4 this case is rare since even the upper bound for the correlation is most of the time less than 0.7. Moreover, in practise mobile antenna polarization contains both vertical and horizontal components (1 < MS < ) and thus, upper bounds of Figures 3 and 4 are not encountered. VI. C ONCLUSION A channel model to calculate antenna correla-

can be employed without changes to present standards.

Delay diversity can also be combined with phase hopping as shown in [11].

Diversity gains of DD/PH and AH were simulated for GSM speech service assuming adaptive multi rate

speech codec at 12.2 kbit/s (AMR12.2), which em-

ploys GMSK modulation and a 1/2 rate convolutional coding with interleaving over eight TDMA frames. The results are depicted assuming 1% frame error rate

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(FER) that is the limiting value for acceptable quality of connection. The radio channel is typical urban at 3 km/h mobile speed (TU3) [13], and correlated Rayleigh fading envelopes for the two component channels were generated according to [12]. The receiver employs a 16-state Max-log-MAP equalizer. At this stage we recall from Figure 1 the theoretical onetoone mapping between power unbalance and envelope correlation of the received signals. The relation is applied in the horizontal axis of Figures 5 and 6, which show the diversity gain of DD/PH and AH against single antenna transmission as a function of envelope correlation and power unbalance. It is found

tion/power unbalance between cross-polarized diversity branches was proposed. First, it was recalled that there is onetoone mapping between antenna correlation and power unbalance between the diversity branches. Then a model to calculate the required mean powers was presented. Two example cases were studied showing that for 45 slanted dipole antennas

the upper bound for correlation can be relatively high at sector edges. Finally, diversity gain for antenna hopping and a combination of delay diversity and

phase hopping was simulated as a function of envelope correlation and power unbalance in the GSM/EDGE framework. R EFERENCES

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Technology Conference, Ottawa, Canada, May 1998, pp.719[10] J. H. Winters: The Diversity Gain of Transmit Diversity in Wireless Systems with Rayleigh Fading, IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., V. 47, No. 1, Feb. 1998, pp. 119-123 sity for EDGE, VTC 2001 Spring [11] K. Kuchi, R. Pirhonen, R. Srinivasan: Hopped Delay Diver[12] N. Balasubramaniam, C. R. Nassar, V. Chandrasekhar: Generation of Correlated Rayleigh Fading Envelopes for Spread 4, Issue 1, Jan 2000 Spectrum Applications, IEEE Communication Letters, Vol. [13] Guidelines for Evaluation of Radio Transmission Technologies for IMT2000, Recommendation ITU-R.M.1225, 1997

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