Degree project

Error Rate Performance of Multi-Hop

Communication Systems Over Nakagami-m
Fading Channel

Authors:
Hassan Sajjad
Muhammad Jamil
Date: 2012-11-12
Subject: Electrical Engineering
Level: Master Level
Course code: 5ED06E

To our parents, family, siblings, friends and

teachers

Science can purify religion from error and superstition.

can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.1
John Paul II, Pope

Reston, Galileo, A Life, HarperCollins, NY, 1994, p 461

Religion

Abstract
This work examines error rate performance of Multi-Hop communication systems, employing Single
Input Single Output (SISO) transmissions over Nakagami-m fading channel. Mobile multi-hop relaying
(MMR) system has been adopted in several Broadband Wireless Access Networks (BWAN) as a costeffective means of extending the coverage and improving the capacity of these wireless networks. In a
MMR system, communication between the source node and destination node is achieved through an
intermediate node (i.e., Relay Station). It is widely accepted that multi-hop relaying communication
can provide higher capacity and can reduce the interference in BWANs. Such claims though have not
been quantified. Quantication of such claims is an essential step to justify a better opportunity for wide
deployment of relay stations.
In this thesis, Bit Error Rate (BER) of multi-hop communication systems has been analysed. Different kinds of fading channels have been used to estimate the error rate performance for wireless transmission. Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) has been employed as the modulation technique and Additive
White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) has been used as the channel noise. The same Signal to Noise Ratio
(SNR) was used to estimate the channel performance. Three channels were compared by simulating their
BER, namely, Rayleigh, Rician and Nakagami. Matlab has been used for simulation.

Acknowledgements
In the name of Allah Almigty, the most merciful the most beneficent, the Creator, the most Gracious
and the Wise, whose help and support are unbounded and gave us patience and ability to reach this
stage of knowledge.
We would like to thank Prof. Sven Nordebo for his supervision, valuable time and advices and support
during this thesis work. We would also like to thank the Swedish Government for giving us an opportunity
to study in this wonderful education system and experience Swedish life.
Thanks to all the friends whose moral support and motivation guided us through our stay in Sweden
and providing a home away from home. Thanks to Mr. Ishtiaq Ahmad for his invaluable help and
suggestions. Last but not the least, it wouldnt have been possible without the countless prayers and
love of our parents, grand parents and siblings. We are thankful to all our family for their support and
encouragement.

Contents
Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3
4
7

Introduction
1.1 Thesis Contribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.2 Thesis Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

8
9
9

Multi-Hop Networks
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2 Single & Multi-Hop Systems . . . . . .
2.2.1
Single Hop Wireless Networks
2.2.2
Multi-Hop Wireless Networks
2.3 Relay Station . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.1
Stationary Relay Station . . .
2.3.2
Mobile Relay Stations . . . . .
2.4 Relayed Transmissions . . . . . . . . .
2.5 System and Channel Models . . . . . .
2.6 Mobile Multi-Hop Relay . . . . . . . .

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Fading Channels
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2 Fading in Wireless Communication . . . . .
3.3 Nature of Multipath Propagation . . . . . .
3.4 Rayleigh Fading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.1
Applicability . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4.2
Generating Rayleigh Fading . . . .
3.4.3
Related Distributions . . . . . . . .
3.5 Rician Fading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5.1
Related Distributions . . . . . . . .
3.6 Nakagami Fading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.6.1
Generating Nakagami Distribution
3.7 Mitigating Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.7.1
Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.7.2
Channel Coding . . . . . . . . . . .

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Simulation Results
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2 Generating Fading in Matlab . . .
4.2.1
Rayleigh Distribution . . .
4.2.2
Rician Fading . . . . . . .
4.2.3
Nakagami-m Fading . . . .
4.3 Important Concept for Simulation .
4.4 Simulation Setup . . . . . . . . . .
4.5 Discussion of Results . . . . . . . .
4.5.1
Varying Gain of Relay . .
4.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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CONTENTS

Future Work
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . .
5.2 Thesis Contribution . .
5.3 Future Contributions . .
5.4 Types of MIMO Systems
5.4.1
SISO System . .
5.4.2
SIMO System .
5.4.3
MISO Systems .
5.4.4
MIMO Systems
5.5 Channel Capacity . . . .
Bibiliogrpahy . . . . . . . . . .

CONTENTS

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Page 6 of 33

List of Figures
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5

Single-Hop Network Topology

Multi-Hop Network Topology
Stationary Relay Stations . .
Mobile Relay Stations . . . .
Relay in a network . . . . . .

3.1

Doppler Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6

Rayleigh Fading: BER vs SNR for single and dual hop systems .
Rician Fading: BER vs SNR for single and dual hop systems . .
Nakagami Fading: BER vs SNR for single and dual hop systems
Nakagami Fading: BER vs SNR for five hops . . . . . . . . . . .
Nakagami for different m . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Varying Gain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4

SISO System .
SIMO System .
MISO Systems
MIMO Systems

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CHAPTER

1
INTRODUCTION

The era of wireless communications started when the first generation (1G) of wireless cellular systems
was launched in the early 1980s. These systems utilized analogue air interface and supported voice applications only. With the higher user demand for cellular services and the increased need for better quality
of service (QoS), the second generation (2G) of wireless cellular systems was introduced. 2G utilized
digital air interface, providing higher bandwidth and better voice quality. In addition to supporting voice
applications, 2G had the capability to support limited data applications. The capabilities of supporting
higher bandwidths and better voice quality have led to the tremendous popularity of 2G wireless cellular
systems, which were successfully deployed and attracted a large number of users around the world.
The remarkable success of 2G wireless cellular systems, however, together with the continuous growth
of the Internet have resulted in an increased demand for wireless data services any time and anywhere
using any wireless device. This has motivated the development of the third generation (3G) wireless
cellular systems for better QoS and a higher capacity support. One of the 3G systems is Universal Mobile
Telecommunications System (UMTS) that was developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project
(3GPP) [1]. UMTS has the capability to support a transmission rate of up to 2 Mbps, consequently to
offer new data services.
The increased demand for supporting new applications with a higher data rate, led to the need
for data rates beyond what is supported by current 3G wireless systems. To fulfil the support for
such high data rate, Broadband Wireless Access Systems (BWASs) have been developed. For example,
3GPP is developing a new standardized system called Long Term Evolution (LTE) [2]. The LTE has
been introduced as an evolutionary step for UMTS in terms of capacity and architecture improvements,
therefore it provides higher data rates, and improved coverage and spectrum efficiency [2]. The LTE
system supports data rates greater than 100 Mbps, and efficiently utilize the spectrum using an OFDM
system. Another BWANs is the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), which has
been standardized by the IEEE 802.16 group [5]. WiMAX is a BWANs that has the capability to support
data rate up to 70 Mbps.
BWANs such as LTE and WiMAX have gained tremendous attention lately for leveraging the support
of a wide range of applications with different Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. Despite the support
for such range of applications, satisfying the different QoS requirements while maximizing the network
capacity and extending the network coverage are still major issues in these networks. Mobile Multi-hop
relaying (MMR) system has been adopted in several BWANs such as LTE-advanced (Release10) [3], [4],
and WiMAX (IEEE802.16j) as a cost-effective means of extending the reach and/or capacity of these
wireless networks. The emerging MMR extension enhances the conventional BWANs to enable support of
multi-hop communication between a mobile station (MS) and a base station (BS) through intermediate
relay stations (RSs) [6].
As mentioned above many of the applications in wireless communication require high data rate.
Higher the date rate higher the required bandwidth for transmission. However, due to bandwidth
limitations, it is mostly impractical and sometimes expensive to increase the bandwidth. in that case
there is another solution to the problem, that is, using multiple transmit and receive antennas. Multiple

1.1. THESIS CONTRIBUTION

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

antennas can be used to achieve transmit diversity or Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) channels.

More detailed explanation of MIMO will be given in the further sections.
In wireless communication, the signal can be attenuated with time while propagating over a certain
media. The fading, attenuation can vary with time, geographical location and/or radio frequency so it
is often modelled as a random process. A fading channel is a communication channel comprising fading.
In wireless communication fading is mostly due to multipath propagation or shadowing which affects
the wave propagation. There are different fading models that can be used to estimate the fading over a
channel, e.g.,
Nakagami fading
Log-normal shadow fading
Rayleigh fading
Rician fading
Weibull fading
This thesis work examines the error rate performance of multi-hop MIMO communication systems
over Nakagami-m fading channel. In multi-hop communication systems the transmitter (usually Base
Station) and the receiver (Mobile Station) does not have a direct connection. They are connected through
a Relay Station (RS) which helps in the transmission from MS to BS and vice versa. The relay station
has many advantages but also has some drawbacks which will be discussed in the coming sections.

1.1

Thesis Contribution

BWANs such as LTE and WiMAX are proposed to give high data rates and better Quality of Service
(QoS) to the end users. The Mobile Multi-hop Relay (MMR) system is adopted in both LTE-advanced
and WiMAX to extend the coverage area and control the power issues. In this thesis the objectives are
to;
Provide an expression for the end to end Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of a two-hop and multi-hop
relay networks.
The capacity of the above system will also be analysed and presented.

1.2

Thesis Organization

This thesis is divided into different chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction and gives an overview of the
whole report. Chapter 2 is about Multi-hop networks, gives an insight into the background and related
work that has been carried out on multi-hop communication systems. Chapter 3 is about different fading
channels which were considered during this study, namely, Rayleigh, Rician and Nakagami. Chapter 4
includes the discussion and presentation of the results. Chapter 5 is the conclusion drawn from the thesis
and discuss possible directions for future research work.

Page 9 of 33

CHAPTER

2
MULTI-HOP NETWORKS

2.1

Introduction

In the recent years there have been many technological innovations in the field of communication. Broadband Wireless Area Networks (BWAN), Long Term Evolution (LTE) have become very famous. The
reason being that there is a high demand for high data transfer, online interactive games and a very high
quality of service is required by the users. These requirements can only be fulfilled by high data transfer
which in turn requires high bandwidths. However, as soon as high frequency is used, it gives rise to
other problems for example high attenuation, deviation of the transmitted signals and distortion. The
rate of attenuation is high in higher frequencies as compared to the lower frequencies. So as a result,
the communication cell size is reduced and consequently it leads to the installation of more base stations
(BS). There are many solutions to these problems, however a cheaper solution is usually required. One
of the many solutions will be discussed in the upcoming sections i.e., the use of Relay Networks (Relayed
transmission).
Multi-hop transmission is a combination of short links to cover a long distance communication
network using many intermediate relaying terminals in between the transmitter and the receiver. There
are many benefits of using relayed transmissions, the most important is that the transmit power required
by both, the transmitter and receiver, reduces by a great amount and it ultimately improves the battery
life. Dual-hop transmission was first come across in the bent pipe satellites where the main idea was
to relay uplink carrier into downlink. This concept has also become famous in wireless communication
systems in the recent years [17].
The most common performance assessment criterion for a digital system in literature is bit error
rate (BER). Average BER is the ratio of erroneous bits at the receiver, on average. It is a function of
the fading model of the channel and the types of receivers employed. Moreover, average BER is also a
function of the type of modulation used at the transmitter. This performance criterion is used to assess
the performance of non-regenerative multi-hop communication system (See more in Chapter 4).

2.2

Single & Multi-Hop Systems

This section covers two types of hops namely single and multi-hop along with introduction of RSs to
achieve multi hoping with different modulation techniques. Rather than having a direct single hop
communication between base station and mobile terminal, the transmission is spread out on several
relay terminals acting as repeaters, opens the new face of technology known as Multi-hoping.

2.2.1

Single Hop Wireless Networks

Current cellular wireless network (e.g., GSM, CDMA, and IEEE 802.16) invariably confines its operation
to a point-to-multipoint topology, wherein two and only two types of network entity, namely base station
(BS) and mobile station (MS), can exist. As illustrated in figure 2.1, a centralized control entity (i.e.,

10

2.2. SINGLE & MULTI-HOP SYSTEMS

CHAPTER 2. MULTI-HOP NETWORKS

Base Station (BS)) has the sole authority to manage and coordinate the communications initiated by or
terminated at the end users (i.e., Mobile Station (MS)) that are in the direct transmission range of the
BS. Regardless of whether the communication is between two MSs that are directly associated with the
BS, or is between an MS and an external network entity, all the traffic have to pass through the BS.

Figure 2.1: Topology for single hop point to multi-point wireless networks

2.2.2

Multi-Hop Wireless Networks

The wireless network where relays will be deployed can be divided into two distinct categories, as illustrated in figure 2.2a and figure 2.2b. In both figures, the solid arrowed lines are used to connect
the network entities that are one hop away from each other, and thus can directly communicate with
each other. Meanwhile, dotted arrowed lines represent the possible communication between two network
entities that logically have multiple hops in between.

(a) Topology I

(b) Topology II

Figure 2.2: Different topologies for Multi-Hop Relay Wireless Network

The key difference between the two network topologies is that RSs and MSs in figure 2.2a are probably
able to receive from and transmit to the network entities which are more than one hop away from them
directly, provided that proper modulation and coding schemes are selected. In figure 2.2b, however,
radio signal propagation can only reach the stations that are one hop away from the transmitter. For

Page 11 of 33

2.3. RELAY STATION

CHAPTER 2. MULTI-HOP NETWORKS

example, MS3 in figure 2.2a can be engaged in direct transmission with not only BS, but also RS2 and
RS3. Meanwhile, MS3 can only establish a direct communication with RS3 in figure 2.2b.

2.3

Relay Station

Relays are part of a communication network that are dedicated to storing, amplifying and forwarding
data received from the BS to the user devices, and vice versa. Unlike the BS, they are not connected to a
wired line network through a back-haul connection. They rely on wireless transmission to communicate
to the BS. Relays, at times, need additional power but still they are cheaper than installing a BS due
to their limited functionality. Deploying relays can really help improve performance for MS that are on
the edge of the cell and are affected by fading and they also have the potential to solve the coverage
problem for high data rates in macro-cells. Cellular-relay networks could be such that the relay-to-user
links use a different spectrum than base-to-user links [15]. For example, the relays could communicate
to the users through a wireless local area network operating on, say, the IEEE 802.11 network standard,
in which case the relays are like access points and use the unlicensed band, while the BS transmits to
the relays using the cellular-network spectrum. Such a cellular relay network is proposed in [14].
Relays can improve the performance of a cellular network in two main ways. Firstly, the placement
of relays in a cell reduces the propagation losses between the relay transmitters and the user terminals,
which result in increasing the data rates over the link. However, some of this gain can be offset because
the base has to transmit to the relay using the same spectrum. The other reason to expect performance
gains is multiple simultaneous transmissions that are possible within the cell by using relays. The
simultaneously transmitted signals may also interfere with each other, which can reduce the link rates.
Therefore, a careful choice of which links are active during each time slot is very important for the desired
improved performance.
The relay station is connected to the base station on one side and to a group of mobile stations on
the other. The connection to the base station, where the relay acts more or less as a subscriber/mobile
station, is called the relay link, while the connection to the mobiles, where the relay acts as a simple base
station, is called the access link. Two types of relay stations are described in the following subsections.

2.3.1

Stationary Relay Station

Multi-hop scheme allows all the mobile users as well as the base stations to reduce the transmit power.
This saves battery life and also extend the range. As an example, considering the scenario illustrated
in figure 2.3a, where a mobile terminal (MS) is far from the nearest base station. In a conventional
cellular network MS is required to increase transmit power to reach BS and the same applies for the
base station. In a multi-hop system the transmission takes place at a lower power level by allowing
MS to communicate with a neighbouring relay station (RS), which then relays the signal further to
the base station. Naturally, there could be more than one relay-mode relay terminal involved in the
communication link. There is an upper limit on the number of relays that can be used with a single base
station and hence limits the range of a particular base station, the limit is set by the latency allowed
within a certain cellular environment.
On many occasions there is no line-of-sight between a mobile terminal and the base station. A typical
situation in an urban environment would be a base station located around the corner of a building as
shown in figure 2.3b. The signal attenuation over such a propagation path may be very high, demanding
much larger transmission power than would be necessary for covering the mere distance. In multi-hop
systems such a case may be dealt with much greater efficiency. A relay terminal located at the corner
has a line-of-sight to both communicating parties and it can relay the signal with much lower loss in the
propagation path.

2.3.2

Mobile Relay Stations

Mobile Relay Station (MRS) is a relay station that is intended to function while in motion. MRS
mobility is constrained by the same limits as a Mobile Station (MS) in IEEE 802.16e-2005. Relays may
be installed nomadic (transportable, e.g. on trucks) or mobile (on buses, trains, etc.).
Figure 2.4 demonstrates the concept of a multi-hop network, including an MRS mounted on a bus
that provides service to passengers on board. As the MRS moves within an area, it will have to perform
handover between different base stations (when crossing from one network cell to another). At the same

Page 12 of 33

2.4. RELAYED TRANSMISSIONS

(a) Reducing Transmission Distance by a MultiHop Communication

CHAPTER 2. MULTI-HOP NETWORKS

(b) Circumventing Shadowing by

Multi-Hop

Figure 2.3: Stationary Relay Stations

time the group of mobile stations it supports will also change dynamically over time. The physical
layer mode used in each cell is determined by the base station that serves it. As the propagation
environment differs from cell to cell (e.g. urban, suburban, rural), different base stations may require
different physical layer modes. While simple terminals, supporting only the mandatory modes, are still
backwards compatible with all base stations, they need to be able to support the advanced modes in
order to take advantage of them. The same holds for a MRS that acts as a terminal on the relay link.

Figure 2.4: Mobile Relay Stations

2.4

Classification of Relayed Transmission

Depending on the nature of complexity of the relays, relayed transmission systems can be classified into
two main categories, namely, regenerative or non-regenerative systems.
1. In regenerative systems, the relay fully decodes the signal that went through the preceding hop and
retransmits the decoded version into the next hop. This is also referred to as decode-and-forward
(D&F) or digital relaying.In these systems, noise propagation from hop to hop is prevented while
risking the probability of making an error in detecting the signal at each hop.
2. Non-regenerative systems do not perform any kind of decoding, the signal is received, amplified
and forwarded to the next station. That is why it is sometimes referred to as amplify-and-forward
(A&F) or analogue relaying. This kind of relaying is more useful when the carried information is
time sensitive, such as voice and live video.
Non-regenerative relay systems can in turn be classified into two sub categories namely (i) Channel
State Information (CSI)-assisted and (ii) blind relays. Non-regenerative systems with CSI-assisted relays
use instantaneous CSI of the preceding hop to control the gain introduced by the relay and as a result
fix the power of the retransmitted signal. In contrast, systems with blind relays do not need any kind
of channel state information from the preceding hops, in these systems amplifiers are installed which

Page 13 of 33

2.5. SYSTEM AND CHANNEL MODELS

CHAPTER 2. MULTI-HOP NETWORKS

amplifies the received signal with a fixed gain therefore it has a variable transmit power. The transmitted
power depends on the power of the received signal at the relay station. If the received signal power is
more, after amplification the transmit power will be higher. These blind relays do not perform as well
as the CSI-assisted relays, however their low complexity relative to other relays make them a suitable
choice from a practical point of view [7].

2.5

System and Channel Models

To briefly explain system and channel models we can take an example of a three terminal network which
comprises of a base station (BS), relay station (RS) and a mobile station (MS). The scenario can be seen
in figure 2.5, where the BS is communicating with a MS through a RS. The BS is transmitting a message
signal m(t) with an average power, Pavg , if 1 and B2 represent the fading amplitude of the channels
between the BS to RS and RS to MS, respectively, then the received signal at the RS can be written as,
RRS (t) = 1 m(t) + N1 (t) ,

(2.1)

where N1 (t) is an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) signal with a power of np1 at the input of RS.
When the signal is received at the RS, it is multiplied by a certain relay gain, . Gain of the relay is
dependent on the relay being used in the system. Some relays have a fix amplification and others have
variable amplifications depending on the power of the received signal. If a high power signal is received
the amplification performed at the relay is adapted according to that, in order to avoid saturation of the
relay. In this work, fixed relays are used and so when the signal is received at the BS, it has the following
form,
RBS (t) = 2 (1 m(t) + N1 (t)) + N2 (t) ,
(2.2)
where 2 is the fading amplitude of the channel between terminals RS and BS and N2 (t) is an AWGN
signal with power np2 at the input of BS. Signal to noise ratio (SNR) at the BS can be written as [17]
SN R =

Pavg 12 22
np1 np2
22
np2

1
2 np 1

(2.3)

It is evident from the above equation that the choice of gain, , will effect the SNR. A fixed gain has
been suggested in [16] which is used in this thesis work. Gain is the ratio of the transmit power of the
relay to the input power at the relay terminal and is given below
s
PT
=
,
(2.4)
Pavg 12 + np1
where PT is the power of the transmitted signal at the output of the relay. There can be other gains
that maybe used, for example, when using regenerative systems as mentioned earlier. However, in this
thesis the above gain has been used for the relays so that the result can be compared with the previous
literature and also to compare different fading channel models. It is important to mention that, the
choice of an optimal gain is important because SNR is highly dependant on the choice of gain and SNR
effects the BER (explained in Chapter 4).

Figure 2.5: Relayed communication

Page 14 of 33

2.6. MOBILE MULTI-HOP RELAY

2.6

CHAPTER 2. MULTI-HOP NETWORKS

MOBILE MULTI-HOP RELAY (MMR)

Mobile multi-hop relay (MMR) system has the ability to enhance the performance of the existing systems
by introducing the use of relay stations. The primary goals are to,
Extend coverage area
Enhance system capacity
Saving battery life of SS and BS and
Minimization of RS complexity
This new idea is backward compatible and conventional SS terminals will be able to work normally in
the MMR enhanced infrastructure. However, the BS has to be modified to allow communication with RS
and to be able to support traffic from multiple RSs. To achieve the best possible results the placement
of RS must be carefully chosen. Three kinds of RS are defined: fixed, nomadic and mobile.
Fixed RS is permanently installed at a fixed location.
Nomadic RS are fixed at a certain location for a period of time.
Mobile RS is installed on moving vehicles such buses and trains.
In some cases SS may also act as relay station. When a MS is experiencing fading, either due to multipath
propagation or shadowing, the problem can be taken care of by using relay systems and allow the MS to
have full functionality. Relayed transmissions may also be used to extend the coverage area by extending
the range at the edge of the cell which also allows a better indoor coverage. Another example of an
interesting usage model is to use fixed relays to provide fixed access on mobile platform such as bus,
train or ferry.
Even though the systems are backward compatible and support the existing infrastructure there are
still many technical challenges and requirements. These technicalities must be taken care of when standardizing for example routing, managing radio resources, power control, frequency usage consideration,
the choice of antennas being used, network management and the security of RS is also and important
concern.

Page 15 of 33

CHAPTER

3
FADING CHANNELS

3.1

Introduction

In wireless communication radio waves propagate from the transmitting station to the receiver station
while passing through free space. During this travel time the waves have to go through absorption,
reflection, refraction, diffraction, and scattering. Ground terrain, atmosphere, buildings, bridges, hills,
trees and many other things affect the waves. For these reasons the signal received at the receiver station
is not exactly as the one transmitted.
Mostly in the cellular systems, the height of the antenna is smaller that the surrounding structures.
Hence, line-of-sight (LOS) communication between the transmitter and the receiver is highly impossible.
In these circumstances the communication is mostly due to reflection, refraction, diffraction and scattering from different structures in the surrounding environment. Therefore, signals arrive at the receiver
via several paths and different time delays which give rise to multipath communication.

3.2

Fading in Wireless Communication

When these signals arrive at the receiver, they have distributed amplitudes and phases. These random
amplitudes and phases combine either constructively or destructively, mostly the later case. This causes
noticeable fluctuations in the received signal amplitude. This phenomenon is called fading [10].
There are different kinds of fading, small scale fading is the fluctuation in the signal amplitude due to
local multipath propagation. Whereas, long-term variation in the mean signal level is called large-scale
fading [10]. The latter effect is due to the travel of the signals over long distances that can cause a lot of
variations in the overall path between the transmitter and the receiver. Large-scale fading is also known
as shadowing, because this usually occurs when the MS moves into the shadow of taller objects such as
buildings and hills. Due to multipath, a moving receiver can sometimes experience several fades in a
very short period of time. In the worst case scenario the MS may stop at a location where the signal is
in deep fade which can be very concerning for maintaining good communication.
To fully understand wireless communication it is important to know what happens to signals when
they travel from a transmitter to a receiver. One of the important aspects of the path between transmitter
and receiver is fading. Therefore, different channel fading models have been introduced which helps in
estimating the channel response between transmitters and receivers. One can find the bit error rate
(BER) according to a certain signal to noise ratio (SNR), channel capacity can also be determined and
ultimately one can find which channel model best fits the real time communication scenarios. Some of
the many fading channel models have been discussed in the following sections.

3.3

Nature of Multipath Propagation

When a radio signal is radiated away from a broadcast antenna it spreads out in different directions.
These waves will encounter reflecting surfaces and the wave will scatter off these surfaces. As mentioned

16

3.4. RAYLEIGH FADING

CHAPTER 3. FADING CHANNELS

Figure 3.1: Angle of arrival n

of the nth incident wave illustrating the Doppler effect

earlier, in an urban environment, the waves might reflect, refract, diffract off buildings, moving trains,
air planes and other objects.
Multipath propagation occurs when a radio signal takes two or more different paths after it is
transmitted from the antenna and before its reception on the receiving antenna. A direct ray, travels
directly from the transmitter to the receiver. It is usually (not always) the strongest signal of all the
signals that reach at the receiving antenna. The other signals (rays) arrive at the receiving antenna
through indirect paths (after going through reflections, refractions, diffractions). Even though these rays
find a way to the reach the receiver but they arrive with different angles and time delays. They also take
more time in reaching the receiver and usually have a weaker power than the direct signals. Depending
on the phase of each partial wave the superposition at the receiver can be constructive or destructive.
The distortion caused by the multipath phenomenon have to be compensated at the receiver side, for
example, by an equalizer
Besides the multipath propagation, Doppler effect also has a negative effect on the transmission
characteristics of the mobile radio channel. Due to the movement of the transmitter/receiver there is a
frequency shift in each of the partial waves. The angle of arrival n , is defined by the direction of arrival
of the nth incident wave and the direction of motion of the mobile unit [18] as shown in Figure 3.1. n
determines the Doppler frequency (frequency shift) of the nth incident wave according to the relation
fn = fmax cos n ,

(3.1)

where fmax is the maximum Doppler frequency related to the speed of the mobile unit v, the speed of
light c , and the carrier frequency f [18] by the equation
fmax =

v
f .
c

(3.2)

Multipath propagation, with the movement of transmitter or receiver, leads to rigorous and random
fluctuations if the received signal. Depending on the speed of the receiver and the carrier frequency,
fades of 30 to 40 dB below the mean value of the received signal level can occur [18].
There are different ways of modelling a communication channel which is useful. These channel models
can help in modelling the important statistical properties of real world communication systems and can
also give an idea of the signal amplitudes of the transmitted signals that can be expected at the receiver
side. The make use of different probability density functions to be able to perform these estimations.
They can also give an idea of the level crossing rates and the duration of fading. Some of the statistical
models are explained in the following sections.

3.4

Rayleigh Fading

As mentioned in the earlier sections, when a radio wave is propagated through a communication channel,
there are different factors that effect its propagation between the transmitter and the receiver. Different

Page 17 of 33

3.4. RAYLEIGH FADING

CHAPTER 3. FADING CHANNELS

statistical models have been presented which help in the modelling of communication channels. Rayleigh
fading is one of the model for estimating the effect of propagation environment on a radio signal. It
states that when a signal passes through a communication channel its amplitude will fade randomly,
according to Rayleigh distribution [19]. Furthermore, it assumes that there is no line of sight (LOS)
communication between the transmitter and the receiver and that a multipath propagation environment
exist as well. If there is a strong line of sight component of the signal at the receiver, Rician fading (to
be discussed shortly) may be more applicable.
The mobile station antenna does not always receive the transmitted signal over LOS. It receives a
number of reflected, diffracted and scattered waves as a result of multipath propagation. As a result the
phases are random and ultimately, the received power also becomes a random variable. The transmitted
signal with a frequency fc may reach the receiver via a number of paths, the jth path having an amplitude
Aj , and a phase j [10]. If we assume that there is no direct path or line-of sight (LOS) component, the
received signal m(t) can be expressed as
m(t) =

N
X

Aj cos(fc + j ) ,

(3.3)

j=1

where N is the number of paths. The phase j depends on varying path lengths, changing by 2 when
the path length changes by a wavelength. Therefore, the phases are uniformly distributed over [0, 2].
When there are a large number of scatterers in the channel that affect the signal at the receiver
and there is no LOS between the transmitter and the receiver, Rayleigh fading is used to estimate the
channel performance. Its probability density function (pdf) is
P R (r)

2r
expr/ ,

r0,

(3.4)

where R is a random variable with Rayligh distribution and is given by

= E(R2 ).

(3.5)

Rayleigh distribution is characterized by the single parameter . Rayleigh fading channels are used
to simulate high frequency communication for example, ionospheric communications. Unfortunately, it
does not simulate this sort of communication with a reliable accuracy. [12].

3.4.1

Applicability

Whenever, a communication channel has to go through many scatterers this means Rayleigh fading can
be a useful model for that scenario. In such situations there is no LOS between the transmitter and
the receiver and scatterers such as buildings, trees, dust and many other objects causes attenuation,
reflection, refraction and diffraction in the transmitted signal. In long distance and high frequency
communication such as ionospheric and tropospheric signal propagation the particles in the atmosphere
also act as scatterers which can be approximated by Rayleigh fading. Rayleigh fading is a small scale
effect. There are different properties of the environment for example path loss and shadowing which are
superimposed by fading. The speed with which the channel fades is affected by how fast the receiver
and/or transmitter are moving (Doppler effect).

3.4.2

Generating Rayleigh Fading

There are different ways of generating Rayleigh distribution from other distributions. For example,
Rayleigh distribution can be generated (shown in [20]) from:
1. Exponential Distribution, Suppose X is an exponentially distributed random variable. It can
be transformed into Rayleigh distribution by the following transformation:

R = X.
(3.6)
2. Normal Distribution, Let x and y be two normally distributed random variables then Rayleigh
distribution is given by
p
R = x2 + y 2 .
(3.7)

Page 18 of 33

3.5. RICIAN FADING

3.4.3

CHAPTER 3. FADING CHANNELS

Related Distributions

Rayleigh distribution is also related to the following distribution as shown in [19],

p
R Rayleigh() is Rayleigh distributed if R = x2 + y 2 , where x and y are independent normal
random variables.
If R Rayleigh(1), then R2 has a chi-squared distribution with parameter N , degrees of freedom,
equal to two (N = 2): [Q = R2 ] 2 (N ).
The Rice distribution is a generalization of the Rayleigh distribution.

3.5

Rician Fading

It has been seen that the signal arriving at the mobile comprises a number of copies of the original signal
due to the multipath effect. This is mostly common in urban areas where it is difficult to establish
a LOS between the transmitting station and the receiver. However if there are some open areas, the
direct signal may reach the receiver with some attenuation. In such case, when there is a strong direct
component of the signal at the receiver Rayleigh fading is no longer valid.
Rice distribution is different from Rayleigh in the sense that Rice assumes a direct LOS path between the transmitter and the receiver along with the multipath waves that arrive at the receiver. The
probability distribution function can be written as
 2
  
r + A2
rA
r
J
,
r0,
(3.8)
p(r) = 2 exp
2

2
2
where J () is the 0th order modified Bessel function of the first kind [21].
J (z) =

z 2n
22n n!n!
n=0

f or z  1.

(3.9)

There are two cases in this distribution:

If A = 0 (absence of dominant signal), p(r) becomes Rayleigh distribution.
If A is large (dominant signal), p(r) becomes a Gaussian distribution.
In the second case, the transmitted signal given in Eq. 3.3 can be written as
m(t) =

N
1
X

Aj cos(fc + dj t + j ) + A cos(fc t + d t) ,

(3.10)

j=1

where the constant A is the strength of the direct component, d is the Doppler shift along the LOS
path, and dj are the Doppler shifts along the indirect paths. The probability density function is given
in [11].
Rician distribution is mostly described by the Rician factor K, which is defined as the ratio between
the power of the direct path and the power of the indirect paths [21]. The value of K can be expressed
in decibels as
 2
A
.
(3.11)
K(dB) = 10 log10
2 2
In Eq. 3.11, if A goes to zero then the direct path is eliminated and the envelope distribution becomes
Rayleigh with K(dB) =

3.5.1

Related Distributions

Rician distribution is related to the following distributions with the parameters as described below [22]:

R Rice(, ) has a Rice Distribution if R = X 2 + Y 2 where X N ( cos , 2 ) and Y

N ( sin , 2 ) are independent normal random variables and is any real number.

Page 19 of 33

3.6. NAKAGAMI FADING

CHAPTER 3. FADING CHANNELS

Also, if R Rice(, ) comes from the following steps:

1. Generate P having Poisson distribution with parameter = 2 /2 2 .
2. Generate X having a chi-squared distribution with 2P + 2 degrees of freedom.

3. set R = X.
If R Rice(, ) then R Rayleigh() and R2 has an exponential distribution.

3.6

Nakagami Fading

Nakagami distribution has the ability to describe both Rayleigh and Rician distributions [10]. Rayleigh
distribution failed to estimate the channel behaviour over long distances and high frequencies, this was
was first observed by Nakagami. He also, suggested a parametric gamma distribution based density
function, to describe the experimental data he obtained. Later it was also shown by different researchers
using real life data that was best explained by the model provided by Nakagami rather then other models
like Rayleigh and Rician. Nakagami also provides best fit to the mobile communication channel data
and other deep space communications [12].
Unlike the Rician distribution, Nakagami distribution does not assume a LOS conditions between the
transmitter and the receiver, it uses a parametric gamma distribution-based density function to describe
the experimental data and get approximate distribution, the PDF of Nakagami distribution is


mr2
1
2mm r2m1
exp

,
m : r0,
(3.12)
f (r) =
m (m)

2
where m is Nakagami scale parameter (fading parameter), it describes the fading degree of the propagation media due to scattering and multipath interference processes. When m Nakagami fading
channel becomes a non-fading channel. and is the average power of multipath scatter field, (m) is
the gamma function [12]. The parameters m and can be estimated as following:
m=

E 2 [X 2 ]
,
V ar[X]

and
= E[X 2 ].
Rayleigh and Rician can be considered the special cases of Nakagami distribution. When m = 1,
Nakagami behaves as Rayleigh distribution, with an exponentially distributed instantaneous power. For
m > 1, the fluctuations of the signal strength reduce compared to Rayleigh fading and with higher values
of m less sever channels can be modelled. For m = 0 the Nakagami acts as Rician Distribution.

3.6.1

Generating Nakagami Distribution

The nakagami distribution is related to gamma distribution. It is possible to obtain a Nakagami random
variable from a gamma distribution. Let Y Gamma(k, ), then it is possible to get a random variable
X Nakagami(m, ), by setting k = m, = /m, and taking the square root of Y :

X = Y.
Nakagami distribution can also be generated from the chi-squared distribution with the following
settings. Let 2m be an integer, then nakagami distribution f (y; m, ) can be generated with the parameter k set to 2m and then following it by the scaling transformation. This can be checked by performing
the following transformation on the pdf of a Chi-distribution as below [23]:
p
y = (/2m)x .

Page 20 of 33

3.7. MITIGATING TECHNIQUES

3.7

CHAPTER 3. FADING CHANNELS

Mitigating Techniques of Fading Channels

Fading causes many problems in wireless communication systems. There are different methods of reducing the effects of fading channels. Some of them are discussed below in detail. Equalization may
fix most of distortion caused by the channel but it may not amplify a signal that is going through a
very deep fade. At times when the fading is deep it can be very difficult sometimes, even impossible, to
recollect the transmitted signal. To avoid losing the data due to deep fading diversity combining can be
be employed.

3.7.1

Diversity

The concept of diversity combing suggests that if more than one transmitting/receiving antennas are used
for reception/transmission of the signal, the probability that deep fades will occur on all the antennas
at the same time is lower than the probability that deep fades will occur on one of these antennas.
Therefore, signals received from different antennas can be combined in different ways to reduce the effect
of deep fades to a great amount, which ultimately improves the reception quality. There are different
methods of combining the signals to improve the reception, given below:
1. Selective Diversity: All the signals are weighted to make sure that they have the same SNR,
the signal with the highest amplitude is used for reception. This strongest signal among all the
signals is then used for reception.
2. Scanning Diversity: In this technique the signals are compared to a threshold value, when
one is found that signal is then used for reception regardless of its power compared to other
signals. However, if the power of the signal drops below the threshold value the scanning process
is repeated and another signal is used for reception with its power greater than the threshold.
3. Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC): Signals are weighted according to their SNR and then
added together. Before that it must be assured that they have the same phase in order to get
constructive addition. The signals can also be delayed to make sure that they have the same
phase.

3.7.2

Channel Coding

After using equalization and different diversity techniques to reduce loss or corruption of data, there still
may be bits that contain errors. Channel coding is the next step that can be taken, it helps in reducing
the probability of errors in the data. Redundant bits are added to the data which can help in detecting
errors in the receiver and also correct them at times. The higher the number of redundant bits the higher
the chances of detection and correction of data at the receiver.
Some of the famous channel coding techniques are given below:
1. Block Codes: These are the simplest type of codes. The data is divided into blocks. Redundancy
bits are added to each block of data. The redundancy allow error detection and sometimes it can
correct the detected errors at a low level. Hamming code is one of the types of block codes.
2. Convolution Codes: In this technique, the data is convolved with a particular polynomial. At
the receiver the data is divided by the same polynomial used in the encoder. If the result after
division is 0, there are no errors. If the result is non-zero, errors have occurred and the result can
be used to locate the location of error.
3. Turbo Codes: Multiple convolution encoders and decoders along with interleaving (spreading
the bits so that bits with errors are separated from each other ) are used. Shannon channel
capacity limit is almost reached with turbo coding, that is why it has advantage over other coding
techniques .

Page 21 of 33

CHAPTER

4
SIMULATION RESULTS

4.1

Introduction

Researchers have been using different software tools to simulate the channel estimation for various communication systems, for example, OPNET, LabView and Matlab just to name a few. In this thesis
work Matlab was used to simulate bit error rate (BER) performance versus signal to noise ratio (SNR)
for multi-hop communication systems over various fading channels. This chapter gives an insight into
what steps were carried out to perform the required simulations. Different channels (mentioned in
Chapter 3) were simulated and the graphs for various calculations are presented in the sections to follow.

4.2

Generating Fading in Matlab

Three different distributions, Rayleigh, Rician and Nakagami-m, have been analysed. A detailed explanation of these distributions can be found in sections 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6, respectively. The following
subsections will describe how these channel distributions were generated based on their description in
theory.

4.2.1

Rayleigh Distribution

There are different ways of generating Rayleigh distributions in Matlab, the method used in this work
is given below, which on comparison with other standard methods as mentioned in Section 3.4 showed
the same result. A snippet of the code is shown below,
sigma = s q r t (10.( SNR/ 1 0 ) ) ;
n1 = 1/ s q r t ( 2 ) [ randn ( 1 , n r d a t a b i t s ) + j randn ( 1 , n r d a t a b i t s ) ] sigma ;
h1 = 1/ s q r t ( 2 ) [ randn ( 1 , n r d a t a b i t s ) + j randn ( 1 , n r d a t a b i t s ) ] ;
Where n1,h1 generates the channel noise (considered AWGN for this simulation) and the channel
fading, respectively. Sigma represents the noise variance and SNR is predefined with its value between 0
and 45 increasing with a step size of 2.5. nr data bits are the number of bits that are to be transmitted
which are random 1s and 0s as Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) has been used.

4.2.2

Rician Fading

As stated earlier on many occasions, Rayleigh and Rician are almost the same distributions. The
difference is on their usage, Rician distribution is used for estimation when there is direct path between
the transmitter and the receiver along with other multipath waves. A snippet of the code is given below.
Noise remains the same here as was generated in case of Rayleigh, for comparison purpose.
mx and my are used to shift the lower bound for the random number generator. h1 is the channel
fading and similarly different fading can be generated for different hops.

22

4.3. IMPORTANT CONCEPT FOR SIMULATION

CHAPTER 4. SIMULATION RESULTS

mx = 0 . 5 ;
my = 0 . 5 ;
sigma = 1 ;
x = mx + sigma . randn ( 1 , n r d a t a b i t s ) ;
y = my + sigma . randn ( 1 , n r d a t a b i t s ) ;
h1 = s q r t ( x . 2 + y . 2 ) ;

4.2.3

Nakagami-m Fading

Rician and Rayleigh can be considered as the special cases of Nakagami-m distribution. The m factor
here can take different values which can represent different kinds of distributions depending on the
environment and the scattering conditions. The code shown below generates Nakagami distribution,
which is related to Gamma distribution, generated by gamrnd().
omega=1; mu = . 5 ; % mu= m parameter
h1 = [ s q r t ( gamrnd (mu, omega . /mu, 1 , n r d a t a b i t s ) ) ] ;
mu is an important m factor, which is chosen to be 0.5 for this simulation. Choosing m = 1 and
m = 0 generates Rayleigh and Rician distributions respectively. Choosing other values for m will give
different distributions.

4.3

Important Concept for Simulation

Multi-hop systems mean, when there is no LOS between the transmitter and the receiver. A relay is
installed which amplify and forward the signal that it receives from the transmitter/receiver. Assume
that MS is transmitting a signal m(t) which has an average power Pavg . The received signal at the RS
can be written as
RRS (t) = 1 m(t) + N1 (t) ,
(4.1)
where 1 is the fading amplitude of the channel between MS and the relay station (RS) and N1 (t) is an
Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) with a power np1 at the input of the RS. As described earlier
there are two main types of relays; Regenerative Relays, received signal is decoded and then forwarded
to the next hop and Non-regenerative Relays, Amplifies and forwards the signal to the next hop.
A non-regenerative relay has been used for this simulation. In this kind of system, the received signal
and noise are multiplied by the gain of the relay, G, at Relay Station (RS) and then retransmitted to
terminal of the Base station (BS). The received signal at the BS can be written as
RM S (t) = 2 G(1 s(t) + N1 (t)) + N2 (t) ,

(4.2)

where 2 is the fading amplitude of the channel between RS and the BS and N2 (t) is the AWGN with
power np2 at the input of the BS. Non-regenerative relays introduce fixed gain to the received signal
regardless of the fading amplitude on the first hop. A gain of
s
PT
G=
,
(4.3)
Pavg 12 + np1
is used in this simulation for comparison reasons. Where Pavg 12 + np1 is the average relay input power
after the first channel and PT is the transmit power of the relay. This kind of fixed gain will retransmit
the signal from relay to the destination.

4.4

Simulation Setup

The Matlab code shown in the box below gives the main idea of the simulation. A brief idea of the
code will be discussed.
%N o i s e a d d i t i o n
y1 = h1 . x + n1 ;
%R e c e i v e r

Page 23 of 33

4.5. DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

CHAPTER 4. SIMULATION RESULTS

r 1=y1 . / h1 ;
r 1 = r e a l ( r 1 ) >0;
% counting the e r r o r s
noEr1 ( : , k ) = sum ( i n p = r 1 ) ;
%R e c e i v e d S i g n a l Power a t t h e Relay
s i g n a l p o w e r 1 = mean ( abs ( h1 . x ) . 2 )
%N o i s e Power a t t h e Relay
n o i s e p o w e r 1 = mean ( abs ( ( n1 ) ) . 2 )
%Average SNR a t 1 s t HOP
SNR1( k , : ) = 10 l o g 1 0 ( s i g n a l p o w e r 1 / n o i s e p o w e r 1 ) ;
The code above shows how the signal was transmitted and received at the relay station. The data
was transmitted by the transmitter, channel fading and noise was added to the signal. At the receiver,
the same signal was detected, dividing it by the same channel response that was added to it. Number
of errors are calculated by comparing the transmitted and the received data. Signal and Noise power
are calculated which then help in calculating the signal to noise ratio for the system. As a result BER
versus SNR graph was plotted which shows the effect of adding more hops to be discussed shortly.
The following steps describe the simulation
Main body of the program runs and asks the user to select a channel to see its BER versus SNR
plot.
Number of bits, SNR has already been defined in the program. The default value for SNR is 0 to
45 with a step size of 2.5 and number of bits transmitted are 106 .
Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) is used as the modulation technique.
AWGN is used as the channel noise, channel response is also generated as described previously
using different distributions e.g., gamrnd(),randn().
SNR is increased linearly (same for all fading channels).
Transmitter transmits the data, it arrives at the RS, a fixed relay gain (given by Eq. 4.3) is
applied to it and forwarded to next hop/MS.
Random noise and channel fading is added to the signal transmitted as shown in Eq. 4.1.
Signal is received at the receiver after going through some changes shown by Eq. 4.2.
Number of error bits are calculated.
The whole procedure is done for single hop and multi hop systems.
Graphs are generated which are discussed in the following sections.

4.5

Discussion of Results

This section gives some simulation results for bit error rate (BER) evaluation of single hop and two-hop
in a multi-hop relay network adopting BPSK modulation over Rayleigh, Rician and Nakagami fading
channels. The relays are assumed to be non-regenerative and blind.
First of all, a single hop and two-hop relayed network adopting BPSK modulation over Rayleigh
fading channel is considered. Figure 4.1 shows the BER versus end-to-end SNR for a single and dualhop relay network and also presents the theoretical BER. It can be seen that the BER increases at
the destination for two hop system as compared to the single hop. This is because the relay type is
amplify-and-forward, hence it amplifies the signal as well as noise received from the first channel. So at
the destination, an increase in BER is observed as compared to the single hop. The effect of fading is
clear from the graph as the curve for two-hop spreads away from that of single hop. Two hops systems
improve the performance (even though the average BER increases) since the overall range of the system
is extended by adding a repeater.
As described for Rayleigh distribution the BER versus SNR graph of Rician fading shows almost
the same results as can be seen in Figure 4.2. Even though it is clear that the BER for Rician fading is
higher as seen from the curve for the two hop system. It is further away from the single hop curve.

Page 24 of 33

4.5. DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

CHAPTER 4. SIMULATION RESULTS

BER Performance of TwoHop System over Rayleigh Fading Channel

10

BER Theory
BER OneHop
BER TwoHops
1

Bit Error Rate

10

10

10

10

10

15
20
Average SNR per hop

25

30

35

Figure 4.1: Rayleigh Fading: BER vs SNR for single and dual hop systems
BER Performance of TwoHop System over Rician Fading Channel

10

BER OneHop
BER TwoHops

Bit Error Rate

10

10

10

10

10

15
20
EndtoEnd SNR

25

30

35

Figure 4.2: Rician Fading: BER vs SNR for single and dual hop systems
Finally, Nakagami-m fading channel with m = 0.5 was simulated and the graph can be seen in Figure
4.3. Even here, it is visible that the BER decreases as SNR increases. After the addition of the second
hop it is evident from the graph that at the second hop the BER has increased. The simulation was
started with one hop and then more hops were added with the same SNR to see the effect of addition
of hops in to the system. Addition of each hop means extending the coverage area by the same amount
provided physical conditions remain the same. As shown in Figure 4.4 that the rate with which increase
in BER occur is not the same, that is to say that the rate with which the BER increases after the addition
of successive hops has a diminishing effect. This is an interesting result considering the fact that the
same coverage is added each time a hop is added to the system.
This can also be concluded for Rayleigh and Rician channels as they are special cases of Nakagami
distribution. Another important factor in Nakagami channel modelling is the m parameter. Different
values of m were checked and the changes in corresponding graphs are presented in Figure 4.5a and 4.5b.

Page 25 of 33

4.5. DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

CHAPTER 4. SIMULATION RESULTS

BER Performance of TwoHop System over Nakagami Fading Channel

10

BER OneHop
BER TwoHops

Bit Error Rate

10

10

10

10

10

15
20
EndtoEnd SNR

25

30

35

Figure 4.3: Nakagami Fading: BER vs SNR for single and dual hop systems
BER Performance of MultiHop System over Nakagami Fading Channel

10

Hop 5

Bit Error Rate

10

Hop 1

10

BER OneHop
BER TwoHops
BER ThreeHops
BER FourHops
BER FiveHops

10

10

10

15
20
EndtoEnd SNR

25

30

35

Figure 4.4: Nakagami Fading: BER vs SNR for five hops

4.5.1

Varying Gain of Relay

There are different ways of decreasing the BER as discussed earlier. In figure 4.6 the effect of varying
the gain of relay can be seen. It is evident from the graphs that as soon as we increase the gain of
the relay the BER decreases. The error rate after the addition of hops decreases too. It leads to the
conclusion that the optimum choice of relay gain is important. However, increasing the gain can not be
economical at times, therefore a trade-off between gain selection and BER has to be made in order to
design a network.

Page 26 of 33

4.6. CONCLUSION

CHAPTER 4. SIMULATION RESULTS

BER Performance of MultiHop System over Nakagami Fading Channel

10
BER OneHop
BER TwoHops
BER ThreeHops
BER FourHops
BER FiveHops

BER OneHop
BER TwoHops
BER ThreeHops
BER FourHops
BER FiveHops

10

Bit Error Rate

Bit Error Rate

10

10

10

10

10

10

BER Performance of MultiHop System over Nakagami Fading Channel

10

10

15
20
EndtoEnd SNR

25

30

10

35

(a) For m = 1.5

10

15
20
EndtoEnd SNR

25

30

35

(b) For m = 3.5

Figure 4.5: Nakagami-m fading for different m values

BER Performance of MultiHop System over Nakagami Fading Channel

10

10

Bit Error Rate

Bit Error Rate

10

10

BER OneHop
BER TwoHops
BER ThreeHops
BER FourHops
BER FiveHops

10

10

BER OneHop
BER TwoHops
BER ThreeHops
BER FourHops
BER FiveHops

10

10

BER Performance of MultiHop System over Nakagami Fading Channel

10

10

15
20
EndtoEnd SNR

25

30

(a) 10 times increase in gain

35

10

10

15
20
EndtoEnd SNR

25

30

35

(b) 50 times increase in gain

Figure 4.6: Effect of gain variation on BER

4.6

Conclusion

The performance of multi-hop systems was studied in terms of number of hops and bit error rate versus
signal to noise ratio. Numerical results showed that relaying technology is useful and the fading effects
are reduced to a considerable level. However, it is also concluded that increasing the number of hops
can be a reason for more erroneous data. When more hops were added to the system it was deduced
that each hop extends the coverage area by the same amount provided other conditions remain identical
at the cost of increasing the BER. There has to be a trade off between what is required and what is
achieved. Increase in BER is not a big problem and can be taken care of by using different coding
techniques or using diversity techniques. Another option to decrease the BER is to increase the gain of
the relays being used. It is clear from the analysis that increasing the number of hops has a diminishing
effect on the lowering of system performance.
It can be deduced that using complicated modulating techniques or increasing the power of the
transmitter to increase the coverage area is not a good option as it is expensive and makes the system
more complex. Rather, it is a good idea to implement multi-hop relay networks. This concept applies
to cellular networks and wireless networks. It helps in overcoming obstacles and improves the capacity
by decreasing the distance. They also help decrease the cost since they are much cheaper than installing
a complete base station.

Page 27 of 33

CHAPTER

5
FUTURE WORK

5.1

Introduction

In the modern day there is an increasing demand for high data rate, reliable and high speed wireless
communication links which can support applications like voice, video, web browsing etc. To fulfil these
demands the service providers have to go through tough challenges due to the fact that they have to use
high frequency bands which gives rise to more attenuation, multipath phenomenon and other hurdles
which ultimately causes performance degradation. Usually the medium is shared so there is a high level
of interference as well. There are other challenges for high speed wireless applications which include the
limited bandwidth, hardware complexity and cost of the systems [8].
To overcome these problems the simple approach that comes to mind is to use higher modulation
schemes to improve the bandwidth efficiency. Another option can be to increase the bandwidth. In
most of the cases somehow, these methods are not reliable. The most effective technique for a reliable
high speed wireless communication is to use multiple antenna systems (Multiple Input Multiple Output
MIMO). Some of the basics of MIMO systems will be discussed in the upcoming sections.
In radio communication MIMO systems use multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver to
improve communication performance. It is important to mention here that the terms input and output
refer to the radio channel carrying the signal, not to the devices having antennas. Wireless communication
has been able to perform better due to the implementation of MIMO technology, which significantly
increases the data rate, extends the coverage without the need for additional bandwidth or extra transmit
power.
Several diversity techniques are also used to provide more robust communication even over varying
channels. The main objective of the diversity is to provide different faded replicas for the receiver of
the transmitted signal and with the hope that at least one of these multiple replicas could be received
correctly. There are different types of diversities e.g., time diversity, spatial diversity, frequency diversity,
antenna diversity, modulation diversity and others [8].

5.2

Thesis Contribution

In this thesis work the effect of adding hops (relays) between transmitter and receiver has been simulated.
Bit error rate of these systems has been compared with respect to a constant signal to noise ratio for
each fading channel and different distributions. The channels between the transmitter and the receiver
were varied. Rayleigh, Rician and Nakagami fading models were used to compare the effects on bit error
rate. It was concluded that, bit error rate increased with the addition of each hop. However, addition of
hops a diminishing effect on the degradation of the system performance.
Chapter 2 gives a basic idea of the multi-hop systems and introduce the different kinds of relays that
can be used in multi-hop networks. Bit error rate can be reduced by different techniques which were
discussed in Chapter 3. Simulation results have been discussed in Chapter 4. All the simulations were

28

5.3. FUTURE CONTRIBUTIONS

CHAPTER 5. FUTURE WORK

carried out for Single Input Single Output (SISO) systems.

5.3

Future Contributions

Due to time limits, only the BER was considered for simulation over different channels. There are other
performance checking parameters for the systems and their behaviour over different channels. Capacity
of the channels can be calculated numerically to judge which of the channel among the three channels
considered in this thesis, can best fit the data rate for real time communications. BER for Multiple
Input Multiple Output (MIMO) can also be checked to see channel performance over MIMO multi-hop
systems. The increase in data rates and fading effects can be observed. Some detail of MIMO systems
is given below in order to motivate future work on this topic.

5.4

Types of MIMO Systems

There are different types of MIMO systems. The variations depend on the number of antennas being
used on the transmitter and receiver systems. Basic explanation of these different types is given in the
following sections.

5.4.1

Single Input Single OutputSISO

Figure 5.1 shows a standard radio system with one transmit and one receive antenna. This is called Single
Input, Single Output (SISO) in MIMO technology. These systems are easier to design and installation
costs are minimal as compared to other systems.

Figure 5.1: Single Input Single Output system

5.4.2

Single Input Multiple OutputSIMO

As the name suggests this system consists of single antenna on the transmitter side and multiple antennas
on the receiver side. Figure 5.2 shows a 1X2 SIMO system a simplest scenario of SIMO, with one
transmitting and two receiving antennas. This system is easy to implement and no extra coding is

Figure 5.2: Single Input Multiple Output system

needed. The receiver now sees two different faded signals and can choose the best signal hence improving
the signal to noise ratio.

5.4.3

Multiple Input Single OutputMISO

The simplest scenario of MISO (2X1) system can be seen in figure 5.3, with two transmitting and one
receiving antenna. In this case the same data is transmitted redundantly over the two antennas. The

Page 29 of 33

5.5. CHANNEL CAPACITY

CHAPTER 5. FUTURE WORK

Figure 5.3: Multiple Input Single Output system

advantage is that the multiple antennas and redundancy coding is moved to the baste station which is
easier and cheaper to implement than on the mobile user end. Space time codes are used to produce
redundant signals which were introduced by Alamouti for two antennas. Space time code further improves
performance of the system. The redundant signal is not only transmitted from different antenna but also
at different time from the first one [8].

5.4.4

Multiple Input Multiple OutputMIMO

This is the advance system, with multiple antennas transmitting and multiple antennas receiving. Along
with making the communication more robust it also helps in increasing the data rate. To do this, data
is divided into different streams and then transmitted independently over different antennas. A 2X2
MIMO system is shown in figure 5.4.

Figure 5.4: Multiple Input Multiple Output system

5.5

Channel Capacity

For years, engineers assumed that the theoretical channel capacity limits were defined by the ShannonHartley theorem illustrated in Eq. 5.1.
C = B log2 (1 +

S
)
N

(5.1)

As Eq. 5.1 shows, increase in SNR of the channel results in marginal gains in the channel throughput.
Therefore, the most common and simple way is to increase the bandwidth in order to increase the
data rates. However, increasing the bandwidth leads to attenuation problems and an increase in the
susceptibility of the signal to multipath fading. This means that if the bandwidth is to be increased the
designer should also look into some error reducing techniques, ways of mitigating the effects of fading
and multipath propagation. This is where relayed transmission can be of enormous help.

Page 30 of 33

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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[12] Li Tang Zhu Hongbo, Analysis and Simulation of Nakagami Fading Channel with MATLAB*,
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Page 32 of 33

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