International Journal of Modern Engineering Research (IJMER)

www.ijmer.com Vol.2, Issue.3, May-June 2012 pp-796-798 ISSN: 2249-6645

Bit Error Rate (BER) Analysis of Rayleigh Fading Channels in

Mobile Communication

Vinay Panwar
(M-Tech Scholar, Shobhit University)
Sanjeet Kumar
(Lecturer, World Institute of Technology)

Abstract: In a mobile communication environment the If a radio channel’s propagating characteristics are not
channel is not time invariant and is slowly varying. This specified, one usually infers that the signal attenuation
characteristic feature of the channel leads to a versus distance behaves as if propagation takes place over
phenomenon called Fading. Fading channels induce rapid ideal free space. The model of free space treats the region
amplitude fluctuations in the received signal. If they are between the transmit and receive antennas as being free
not compensated for then this will lead to serious of all objects that might absorb or reflect radio frequency
performance degradation. In this paper simulations have (RF) energy. It also assumes that, within this region, the
been conducted to study the Bit Error Rate (BER) atmosphere behaves as a perfectly uniform and non
performance of a Rayleigh fading channel and it is absorbing medium. In this idealized free-space model, the
compared to the BER performance of the AWGN attenuation of RF energy between the transmitter and
channel. receiver behaves according to an inverse-square law.
For most practical channels, where signal propagation
Keywords: Rayleigh fading channel, Bit Error Rate takes place in the atmosphere and near the ground, the
(BER), AWGN channel. free space propagation model is inadequate to describe
the channel and predict system performance. In a wireless
I. INTRODUCTION mobile communication system, a signal can travel from
In the study of communication systems the classical transmitter to receiver over multiple reflective paths; this
additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, with phenomenon is referred to as multipath propagation. The
statistically independent Gaussian noise samples effect can cause fluctuations in the received signal’s
corrupting data samples free of intersymbol interference amplitude, phase, and angle of arrival, giving rise to the
(ISI), is the usual starting point for understanding basic terminology multipath fading. Another name, scintillation
performance relationships. The primary source of is used to describe the multipath fading caused by
performance degradation is thermal noise generated in the physical changes in the propagating medium, such as
receiver. The external interference received by the variations in the density of ions in the ionosphere layers
antenna is significant than thermal noise. This external that reflect high-frequency (HF) radio signals. Names,
interference can sometimes be characterized as having a fading and scintillation refer to a signal’s random
broadband spectrum and is quantified by a parameter fluctuations or fading due to multipath propagation. The
called antenna temperature [1][2]. The thermal noise main difference is that scintillation involves mechanisms
usually has a flat power spectral density over the signal (e.g., ions) that are much smaller than a wavelength. The
band and a zero-mean Gaussian voltage probability end-to-end modelling and design of systems that mitigate
density function (PDF). When modelling practical the effects of fading are usually more challenging than
systems, the next step is the introduction of band limiting those whose sole source of performance degradation is
filters. AWGN[4][5].

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 International Journal of Modern Engineering Research (IJMER)
www.ijmer.com Vol.2, Issue.3, May-June 2012 pp-796-798 ISSN: 2249-6645

Fig: 1 Multipath fading channel

II. LARGE-SCALE FADING AND SMALL- must process signals that experience both types of fading:
SCALE FADING small-scale fading superimposed on large-scale fading.
Fig. 1 represents an overview of fading channel. It starts
with two types of fading effects that characterize mobile III. RAYLEIGH DISTRIBUTION
communications: large-scale and small-scale fading. This is used to describe the statistical time varying nature
Large-scale fading represents the average signal power of the envelope of an individual multipath component. The
attenuation or path loss due to motion over large areas. In Rayleigh distribution is given by
Fig. 1, the large-scale fading manifestation is shown in
blocks 1, 2, and 3. This phenomenon is affected by
prominent terrain contours (hills, forests, billboards,
clumps of buildings, etc.) between the transmitter and
receiver. The receiver is often represented as being Where, σ= rms value of the received signal
“shadowed” by such prominences. The statistics of large- r2/2 = instantaneous power
scale fading provide a way of computing an estimate of σ2 = local average power of the received signal before
path loss as a function of distance. This is described in detection
terms of a mean-path loss and a log-normally distributed
variation about the mean. Small-scale fading refers to the IV. BIT ERROR RATE (BER)
dramatic changes in signal amplitude and phase that can Bit error rate is a key parameter that is used in assessing
be experienced as a result of small changes in the spatial systems that transmit digital data from one location to
separation between a receiver and transmitter. As indicated another. BER is applicable to radio data links, Ethernet, as
in Fig. 1, blocks 4, 5, and 6, small-scale fading manifests well as fibre optic data systems. When data is transmitted
itself in two mechanisms, namely, time spreading of the over a data link, there is a possibility of errors being
signal (or signal dispersion) and time-variant behaviour of introduced into the system. If this is so, the integrity of the
the channel. For mobile radio applications, the channel is system may be compromised. As a result, it is necessary to
time-variant because motion between the transmitter and assess the performance of the system, and BER provides
receiver results in propagation path changes. The rate of an ideal way in which this can be achieved. BER assesses
change of these propagation conditions accounts for the the full end to end performance of a system including the
fading rapidity (rate of change of the fading impairments). transmitter, receiver and the medium between the two.
Small-scale fading is also called Rayleigh fading because
if the multiple reflective paths are large in number and BER is defined as the rate at which errors occur in a
there is no line-of-sight signal component, the envelope of transmission system. In simple form,
the received signal is statistically described by a Rayleigh
PDF [3]. When there is a dominant non fading signal
component present, such as a line-of-sight propagation
path, the small scale fading envelope is described by a
Rician PDF [3]. A mobile radio roaming over a large area

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 International Journal of Modern Engineering Research (IJMER)
www.ijmer.com Vol.2, Issue.3, May-June 2012 pp-796-798 ISSN: 2249-6645

BER expression is given by Rappaport (2002) as Figure 2 shows the BER performance when BPSK signal
was transmitted over the fast Rayleigh fading channel at a
mobile speed of 90 km/h. it can be observed that at SNR
of 4 dB. Figure 3 shows the probability density function of
Rayleigh fading channel. Fig 4 shows the envelope of RF
Where Pb(E/r) = the conditional error probability signal.
P(r) = the pdf of the SNR

V. RESULTS
The simulation of the model under study was carried out
using MATLAB application package. The simulation was
carried out with BPSK modulation. The following
parameters and system configurations were used:

Modulation: BPSK
Carrier frequency: 900 MHz
Bandwidth of signal: 200 ns
Noise: AWGN
Mobile speed: 90 km/h
Fading type: Rayleigh fading

Fig:4 Envelope of RF signal

VI. Conclusion
In this paper, bit error rate performances for Mobile
communication with BPSK transmission schemes have
been evaluated with random data. Two types of fading,
large-scale and small scale were described. Generation of
Rayleigh faded envelope for varying number of paths are
shown. BER Performance of a BPSK signal in presence of
AWGN and Rayleigh Channel.

VII. REFERENCES
[1] B. Sklar, Digital Communications: Fundamentals and
Applications, Ch. 4, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
Fig:2 BER in Rayleigh fading and AWGN Hall, 1988.
[2] H. L. Van Trees,Detection Estimation, and
Modulation Theory, Part I,Ch. 4, New York: Wiley,
1968.
[3] T. S. Rappaport, Wireless Communications, Chs. 3
and 4, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996.
[4] J. G. Proakis, DigitalCommunications, Chapter 7,
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983.
[5] E. Biglieri, J. Proakis and S. Shamai, ”Fading
channels: Information-theoretic and communications
aspects,” IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, 50-th
anniversary issue, Oct. 1998.
[6] Yee, Z. and E.H. Satorius. 2003. “Channel Modelling
and Simulation for Mobile User Objective System
(MUOS)-part1: Flat Scintillation and Fading” in
proceedings of IEEE ECC. 5(3503-3510).
[7] Leon, W.C. 2002. Digital and Analog Communication
System, 6th Ed. Pearson Education, INC, Singapore.
Fig: 3 Probability density function of Rayleigh fading
channel

The BER performances as a function of SNR for two i.i.d

paths in mobile multipath fading channel with BPSK.
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