Chapter 4: Mitigation Techniques

Undergraduate Program
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
The textbook Theodore Rappaport and Solved problems are available for free on telegram channel: @wirelescom
Goals of the Chapter

 Radio channel is dynamic because of multipath fading and

Doppler spread
 Fading cause the signal at the receiver to degrade

 How to improve link performance in hostile mobile

environments?
 Mitigation techniques: Channel equalization, diversity, spread
spectrum, interleaving, channel coding, …

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 2

Overview
 Introduction
 Equalization techniques
 Diversity techniques
 Channel coding

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 3

Introduction
 Mobile radio channel (in Ch 3+4) is particularly dynamic
due to
 Multipath fading
 Doppler spread

 As a result, the channel has a strong negative impact on

BER of any modulation technique (in Ch 5)
 To improve received signal quality in hostile mobile radio
environment, we need
 Equalization
 Diversity
 Channel coding, …
 Each can be used independently or in tandem

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 4

Introduction - Equalization

 Equalization compensates for ISI created by time dispersive

multipath channels
 Recall that pulse shaping filters also compensate for ISI
 Can also be used for time selective channels

 ISI is the result of frequency selective channel

 Equalizers must be adaptive since the channel is generally
unknown and time varying
 Linear equalization vs. nonlinear equalization

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 5

Introduction – Diversity
 Diversity (spatial) compensates for flat fading channel
 Is employed to reduce the depth and duration of the fades
experienced by a receiver
 Idea: Create independent (or at least highly uncorrelated)
signal “channels” for communication
 Kinds of diversity
 Spatial diversity
 Frequency diversity
 Time diversity
 Polarization diversity
 Spatial diversity: Implemented by using two or more
antennas at the transmitter and/or receiver
 Widely used than both time and frequency diversity

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 6

 Introduction - Channel Coding

 Channel Coding improves mobile communication link

performance by adding redundant data bits in the
transmitted message
 Channel coding is used by the Rx to detect or correct
some (or all) of errors introduced by the channel in a
particular sequence of message bits (fading or noise)
 Post detection technique
 Examples: Block code and convolutional code
Baseband
Coding

Carrier

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 7

Overview
 Introduction
 Equalization techniques
 Algorithms for adaptive equalization
 Diversity techniques
 Channel coding

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 8

Equalization – Fundamentals
 Mobile fading channel is random and time varying, so that
equalizers must take this time varying characteristics
 Are also called adaptive equalizers
 The term equalization can be used to describe any signal
processing operation that minimizes ISI
 Two operating modes for an adaptive equalizer are:
 Training
 Tracking

 Three factors that affect the time span over which an

equalizer converges
 Equalizer algorithm, equalizer structure, and time rate of change of
the multipath radio channel

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 9

Adaptive Equalization – Training Mode
 Initially, a known, fixed length training sequence (TS) is sent
by the transmitter so that the receiver’s equalizer may
average to a proper setting
 TS is a pseudo random signal or a fixed, prescribed bit pattern

 Following the TS, the user data is sent

 TS is designed to permit an equalizer to acquire the proper
filter coefficients in the worst possible channel conditions
 Therefore, when the training sequence is finished, the filter
coefficients are near optimal
 An adaptive equalizer at the receiver uses a recursive
algorithm to evaluate the channel and estimate filter
coefficients to compensate for the channel

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 10

1
Adaptive Equalization – Tracking Mode
 When the data of the users are received, the adaptive
algorithm of the equalizer tracks the changing channel
 As a result of this, the adaptive equalizer continuously
changes the filter characteristics over time
 Equalizers are widely used in TDMA systems

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 111

Equalization – Combating Multipath/delay Spread
 Think of multipath 1
propagation/delay spread as a
2
set of channels with different Sender Receiver

delay i & attenuation, then 3
adding signals up at receiver
4
 Equalization tries to “undo” this Channel
delay/summing up by
introducing additional delay
terms & factors, complementary
1 1
to the channel’s
 Ideally, i + Ti = const 2 2
 i not known Sender   Receiver
3 3
 Estimate factors by
periodically sending 4 4
known training sequences
 Hence, determine Ti Channel Equalizer

Sem. I, 2010/1
4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 12
Equalization – Block Diagram
 Equalizer is usually implemented at baseband or at IF in a
receiver

y(t)x(t)  f (t)  n (t)

b
 f*(t): complex
conjugate of f(t)
 nb(t): baseband
noise at the input
of the equalizer
 heq(t): impulse
of the equalizer

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 13

Equalization …
d̂ t  yt heq t 
 xt  f t heq t  nb t heq t 


 δ t 
 F   f  H eq f 1
 An equalizer is actually an inverse filter of the channel

Ideal Equalizer
Loss [dB]

Equalized
Interconnect
Channel
f [GHz]

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 14

Equalization …
F   f  H eq f 1

 If the channel is frequency selective, the equalizer

 Enhances the frequency components with small amplitudes and
 Attenuates the strong frequencies in the received frequency
response
 So as to provide
 Flat, composite, received frequency response and
 A linear phase response

 For a time varying channel, the equalizer is designed to

track the channel variations so that the above equation is
approximately satisfied

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 15

Generic Adaptive Equalizer – Basic Structure
 Transversal filter with N delay elements, N+1 taps, and N+1
tunable complex weights

 Weights are updated continuously by an adaptive algorithm

 The adaptive algorithm is controlled by the error signal ek
4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 16
 Generic Adaptive Equalizer …
 An adaptive equalizer is a time-varying filter which must
constantly be retuned
 In the block diagram
 The subscript k represents discrete time index
 There is a single input yk at any time instant

 The value of yk depends upon

 Instantaneous state of radio channel and specific value of noise
 The block diagram shown is called transversal filter, has N
delay elements, N+1 taps and N+1 tunable multipliers called
weights
 The weights have second subscript k to show that they vary
with time and are updated on a sample-by-sample basis

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 17

Adaptive Equalization – Algorithm
 The error signal ek
 Controls the adaptive algorithm
 The error signal is derived by comparing the output of the
equalizer with some signal dk which is either
 Replica of transmitted signal xk or
 Which represents a known property of the transmitted signal
 ek is used to minimize a cost function and iteratively update
equalizer weights so as to reduce the cost function
 The Least Mean Square (MSE) algorithm searches for the
optimum or near optimum weight by
 Computing the error between the desired signal and the output of
the equalizer and minimizes it
 Most common cost function

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 18

Adaptive Equalization – Classification

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 19

Adaptive Equalization – Classification …
 Performance measures for an algorithm
 Rate of convergence
 Mis-adjustment
 Computational complexity and numerical properties

 Factors that dominate the choice of an equalization

structure and its algorithm
 The cost of computing platform
 The power budget
 The radio propagation characteristics

 Algorithms
 ZeroForcing (ZF)
 Least Mean Squares (LMS)
 Recursive least square (RLS)

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 20

Adaptive Equalization – Classification …

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 21

Adaptive Equalization – Algorithms …

 The speed of the mobile unit determines the channel

fading rate and the Dopper spread
 Which is related to the coherent time of the channel directly
 The choice of algorithm, and its corresponding rate of
convergence depends on the channel data rate and coherent
time
 The number of taps used in the equalizer design depends
on the maximum expected time delay spread of the channel
 The circuit complexity and processing time increases with
the number of taps and delay elements

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 22

Overview
 Introduction
 Equalization techniques
 Diversity techniques
 Spatial diversity and combining
 Time diversity: Interleaving and RAKE receiver
 Polarization diversity
 Channel coding

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 23

Diversity
 Diversity exploits the random nature of radio propagation
by finding independent (or at least highly uncorrelated)
signal “channels or paths” for communication
 Idea: “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket”

 In fading channels, there exists a finite probability signal

power will fall below any given fade margin
 Send copies of a signal using multiple channels
 Time, frequency, space, antenna
 If one radio path undergoes a deep fade, another
independent path may have a strong signal
 Assumption: Individual channels experience independent
fading events
4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 24
Diversity ….
 By having more than one path to select from, SNR at a
receiver may be improved (by as much as 20 dB to 30 dB)
 Advantage: Diversity requires no training overhead
 It provides significant link improvement with little added cost

 Assume that we have M statistically independent channels

 This independence means that one channel’s fading does not
influence, or is not correlated with, another channel’s fading
 Examples: Using antenna (or space) diversity
 Microscopic diversity: Mitigates small-scale fading effects (deep
fading)
 Macroscopic diversity: Reduces the large-scale fading (selecting
different base stations), can also be used for uplink
 Selecting an antenna which is not shadowed

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 25

Diversity – Types
 Time diversity
 Repeatedly transmits information at time spacing that exceed
the coherence time of the channel, e..g., interleaver
 Spreading out the data over time & better for fast fading channel

 Frequency diversity
 Transmits information on more than one carrier frequency
 Frequencies separated by more than the coherence bandwidth
of the channel will not experience the same fads (FDM)
 Examples:
 Spread spectrum (spread the signal over a larger frequency
bandwidth) or
 OFDM (use multiple frequency carriers)

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 26

Diversity – Space Diversity

 Space diversity
 Transmit information on spatially uncorrelated channels
 Requires multiple antennas at transmitter and/or receiver
 Example: MIMO, SIMO, MISO, virtual antenna systems

 Multipath fading changes quickly over space

 Hence, the signal amplitude received on the different antennas can
have a low correlation coefficient

 Two benefits of space diversity are no additional

 Signal needs to be transmitted (no reduction in data rate) and
 Bandwidth is required

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 27

Overview
 Introduction
 Equalization techniques
 Diversity techniques
 Spatial diversity and combining
 Time diversity: Interleaving and RAKE receiver
 Polarization diversity
 Channel coding

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 28

Diversity – Combining
• Combining: What to do with those independent signals
once we get them?
• Reception methods of space diversity includes
1. Selection combining
2. Scanning or feedback combining
3. Maximal-ratio combining
4. Equal gain combining

 Let us see each of them assuming spatial diversity

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 29

Diversity – Selection Combining
 Selection combining/diversity
 The receiver branch, having the highest instantaneous SNR, is
connected to the demodulator
 The antenna signals themselves could be sampled and the best
one sent to a single demodulation
 Simple to implement but does not use all of the possible branches

>/2

Generalized receiver block diagram for selection diversity

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 30

Diversity Techniques – Examples

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 3

31
Diversity – Scanning Diversity
 Scanning or feedback diversity
 Scanning all the signals in a fixed sequence until the one with
SNR more than a predetermined threshold is identified
 The best of M signals is received until it falls below threshold
and the scanning process is again initiated
 Simple to implement and requires only one receiver

Basic form for scanning

diversity

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 32

Diversity – Scanning Diversity …

 Performance for a single branch

 th  th i

Pr  i   th   p( i )d i  
1 
e d i  1 e  th /

0 0

 Performance for M branch selection diversity

Pr  1 , .... ,  M   th  (1 e  th / ) M  PM ( th )

 The probability that at lease one of the channel not in fade

Pr  i   th  1 PM ( th
  th / M
)  1 (1 e )

 E.g., assume two branches or links and selection combining.

P(one link fails) =0.5, then what is the probability that both
links works? Ans: 0.25.
4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 33
Diversity – Scanning Combining …
 Graph of
probability
distributions of
SNR= = th
threshold for M
branch selection
diversity

 The term  Rule of

represents the diminishing
mean SNR on return
each branch

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 34

Diversity – Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC)
 Principle: “Combine all the signals from all of the M branches in
a co-phased and weighted manner so as to have the highest SNR
at the receiver at all times”

 The control algorithms for setting the gains and phases for
MRC are similar to those required in equalizer
 Need time to converge & performance is as good as the channel

Maximal-ratio combiner

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 35

Diversity – Maximal Ratio Combining …
 Resulting signal envelope applied to the detector is

 Assume that all amplifiers have additive noise at their input

and that the noise is uncorrelated between different
amplifiers
 Then, the total noise power NT applied to the detector is
the weighted sum of the noise in each branch

 Which results in a SNR applied to the detector M

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 36

Diversity – Maximum Ratio Combining …
 Using Chebychev’s inequality M is maximized when Gi=ri/N
 The maximized value is

 The probability that M is less than some SNR threshold  is

 Hence the mean SNR is

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 37

Diversity – Equal Gain Combining
 Equal gain diversity
 The branch weights are all set to unity but the signals from
each are co-phased to provide equal gain combining diversity
 Co-phased signals and then add them together

 This allows the receiver to exploit signals that are

simultaneously received on each branch
 In certain cases, it is not convenient to provide for the
variable weighting capability as in MRC
 The probability of producing an acceptable signals from a
number of unacceptable inputs is still retained

 The performance is marginally inferior to maximal ratio

combining and superior to selection combining

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 38

Diversity – Equal Gain Combining
 Practical considerations for space diversity to assure the
de-correlation (narrow angle of incident fields)
1
 
 For mobile units 2

 For base station x10

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 39

Overview
 Introduction
 Equalization techniques
 Diversity techniques
 Spatial diversity and combining
 Time diversity: Interleaving and RAKE receiver
 Polarization diversity
 Channel coding

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 40

4
Time Diversity – Interleaving
• Used to combat the effect of burst errors
Interleavers Channel Coding

• Types: Block interleaver or convolutional interleaver

Block interleaver where source bits are read into columns and out as n-bit rows

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 41

Time Diversity – Interleaving …

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 42

Time Diversity – Interleaving …
 Time diversity: Uses a changing channel (due to mobility) at
different times
 Example: Send same data at multiple different times
 However, this require multiple times the transmit power, and
reduce data rate (incurs additional latency)
 Latency depends on the application, e.g., voice is latency sensitive

 Time diversity is used in almost all common commercial

systems in the form of “interleaving”
 Interleaving: Takes an incoming coded bit stream and
spreads the bits across a transmitted packet in a known
pattern
 So that a burst of (multiple sequential) coded bit errors caused by
the channel are spread across the packet by the interleaver

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 43

Time Diversity – Interleaving …
 At the receiver, inverse interleaving (called de-interleaving)
operation is performed
 Error correction codes are more effective when errors are
not grouped together
 Block codes – At most one error per 6 or 7 received coded bits
 In general, coding methods correct a few out of each group of
coded bits received, but not more

 Drawback: Temporal correlation can be very long for most

applications, even for vehicular communications
 Packet retransmissions (e.g., TCP) can be viewed as time
diversity

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 44

Time Diversity – RAKE Receiver
 RAKE Receiver for CDMA with multipath channel

 An M-branch (M-finger) RAKE receiver implementation

 Each correlator detects a time-shifted version of the original CDMA
transmission
 Each finger of the RAKE correlates to a portion of the signal which
is delayed by at least one chip in time from the other finger

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 45

Time Diversity – RAKE Receiver …
 In DS-SS, a rake receiver separates multipath components
from each other based on their differing time delays
 Hence, helps to achieves multipath diversity

 If one time delay group fades, another time delay group

may not fade
 Advantage (compared to space diversity)
 The “fingers” of the rake receiver do not require different RF chains
 Beneficial when the multipath channel is the worst, for example, in
urban areas or in mountain canyons

 Disadvantage of DS-SS
 Large frequency band required – for example, 20 MHz for 802.11b,
or 1.25 MHz for IS-95 (cellular CDMA)
 Significant computational complexity in the receiver

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 46

Overview
 Introduction
 Equalization techniques
 Diversity techniques
 Spatial diversity and combining
 Time diversity: Interleaving and RAKE receiver
 Polarization diversity
 Channel coding

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 47

Diversity Techniques – Polarization Diversity
 It uses two antennas with different polarizations
 Reflection coefficients are different for horizontal and vertically
polarized components of the signal
 One polarized signal is nearly uncorrelated with the other
polarized signal
 Advantages: The two antennas don’t need to be spaced
/2 apart; hence possible to implement on a mobile device
 Can be combined with space diversity to further reduce the
correlation coefficient b/n signal received at two antennas
 Polarization diversity doesn’t require additional bandwidth
or signal transmission from the transmitter
 Like space diversity

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 48

Diversity Techniques – Polarization Diversity …
 Disadvantage: There can be only two channels
 Vertical and horizontal
 Or right-hand and left-hand circular polarizations
 It may require two receiver RF chains (again, unless a
scanning combiner is used)

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 49

Diversity Techniques – Polarization Diversity …

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 5

50
Overview
 Introduction
 Equalization techniques
 Diversity techniques
 Channel coding

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 51

Channel Coding
 Mainly for error control and classified as block or
convolutional codes
 Block Codes, examples
 Forward error correction (FEC) codes
 Hamming Codes
 Hadamard Codes
 Golay Codes
 Cyclic Codes
 BCH cyclic
 Reed-Solomon Codes
 Convolutional code

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 52

Channel Coding – Convolutional Codes

 Trellis Coded Modulation: Combines both coding and

modulation

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 53

Summary
 Equalizers attempt to make the discrete time impulse
response of the channel ideal
 Channels act as filters that cause both amplitude and phase
distortion of signals
 Transmitters and receivers can be designed as filters to
compensate for non-ideal channel behavior
 Training sequences can be used to adapt equalizer weights
 Multiple techniques are available for setting filter tap weights
 Zero forcing
 Least mean squares
 Recursive least squares

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 54

Summary …
 Diversity is one technique to combat fading in wireless channel
 Time diversity: Used when channels spacing is greater than the
coherence time of the channel
 Repeating transmission in time correlated channel brings little
advantage
 Good with fast fading channels
 Frequency diversity: used when channels frequency separation is
greater than the coherence bandwidth of the channel
 Spatial diversity requires multiple antennas
 E.g., MIMO and virtual antenna systems

 Channel coding is mainly used for error control

The textbook Theodore Rappaport and Solved problems are available for
free on telegram channel: @wirelescom

4/22/2020 Ch4- part-III Mitigation teq. 5