Contributions to channel modelling and performance estimation of HAPS-based communication systems regarding IEEE Std 802.16TM

New and future telecommunication networks are and will be broadband type. The existing terrestrial and space radio communication infrastructures might be supplemented by new wireless networks that make and will make use of aeronautics-technology. Our study/contribution is referring to radio communications based on radio stations aboard a stratospheric platform named, by ITU-R, HAPS (High Altitude Platform Station). These new networks have been proposed as an alternative technology within the ITU framework to provide various narrow/broadband communication services. With the possibility of having a payload for Telecommunications in an aircraft or a balloon (HAPS), it can be carried out radio communications to provide backbone connections on ground and to access to broadband points for ground terminals. The latest implies a complex radio network planning. Therefore, the radio coverage analysis at outdoors and indoors becomes an important issue on the design of new radio systems. In this doctoral thesis, the contribution is related to the HAPS application for terrestrial fixed broadband communications. HAPS was hypothesised as a quasi-static platform with height above ground at the so-called stratospheric layer. Latter contribution was fulfilled by approaching via simulations the outdoor-indoor coverage with a simple efficient computational model at downlink mode. This work was assessing the ITU-R recommendations at bands recognised for the HAPS-based networks. It was contemplated the possibility of operating around 2 GHz (1820 MHz, specifically) because this band is recognised as an alternative for HAPS networks that can provide IMT-2000 and IMT-Advanced services. The global broadband radio communication model was composed of three parts: transmitter, channel, and receiver. The transmitter and receiver parts were based on the specifications of the IEEE Std 802.16TM-2009 (with its respective digital transmission techniques for a robust-reliable link), and the channel was subjected to the analysis of radio modelling at the level of HAPS and terrestrial (outdoors plus indoors) parts. For the channel modelling was used the two-state characterisation (physical situations associated with the transmitted/received signals), the state-oriented channel modelling. One of the channel-state contemplated the environmental transmission situation defined by a direct path between transmitter and receiver, and the remaining one regarded the conditions of shadowing. These states were dependent on the elevation angle related to the ray-tracing analysis: within the propagation environment, it was considered that a representative portion of the total energy of the signal was received by a direct or diffracted wave, and the remaining power signal was coming by a specular wave, to last-mentioned waves (rays) were added the scattered and random rays that constituted the diffuse wave. At indoors case, the variations of the transmitted signal were also considering the following matters additionally: the building penetration, construction material, angle of incidence, floor height, position of terminal in the room, and indoor fading; also, these indoors radiocommunications presented different type of paths to reach the receiver: obscured LOS, no LOS (NLOS), and hard NLOS. The evaluation of the feasible performance for the HAPS-to-ground terminal was accomplished by means of thorough simulations. The outcomes of the experiment were presented in terms of BER vs. Eb/N0 plotting, getting significant positive conclusions for these kind of system as access network technology based on HAPS

Using natural means to reduce surface transport noise during propagation outdoors

This paper reviews ways of reducing surface transport noise by natural means. The noise abatement solutions of interest can be easily (visually) incorporated in the landscape or help with greening the (sub)urban environment. They include vegetated surfaces (applied to faces or tops of noise walls and on building façades and roofs ), caged piles of stones (gabions), vegetation belts (tree belts, shrub zones and hedges), earth berms and various ways of exploiting ground-surface-related effects. The ideas presented in this overview have been tested in the laboratory and/or numerically evaluated in order to assess or enhance the noise abatement they could provide. Some in-situ experiments are discussed as well. When well-designed, such natural devices have the potential to abate surface transport noise, possibly by complementing and sometimes improving common (non-green) noise reducing devices or measures. Their applicability strongly depends on the available space reserved for the noise abatement and the receiver position

Diffraction modelling of mobile radio wave propagation in built-up areas

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis examines theoretical methods of modelling radio wave propagation in built-up areas, with particular application to mobile radio systems Theoretical approaches allow precise quantitative description of the environment in terms of parameters such as mean building heights and densities, in contrast to the ambiguous nature of more conventional empirical models. The models are constructed using both scalar and vector field analysis techniques. The vector analysis is accomplished using the Geometrical Theory of Diffraction to describe the detailed effects of building shape and positioning, particularly for short-range situations. Over longer ranges propagation can often be described in terms of multiple edge diffraction over building rooftops using a scalar field representation. This mechanism accounts well for measured field strength variations, but is time consuming to calculate accurately using standard methods. A rapid algorithm for calculating scalar diffraction over multiple building edges with arbitrary positioning is constructed. This model can be used for deterministic prediction of sector median field strengths including slow fading variations when appropriate building data exists. It is also applicable to terrain diffraction problems. For the case when only average building parameters are available a closed form solution to the problem of multiple diffraction over buildings of equal heights and spacings is derived. The solution is applicable to any antenna heights and so provides a rapid and efficient way to predict gross propagation characteristics. Both models are tested against measurements made in the UHF band and are found to yield good prediction accuracy.This work is funded by the Science and Engineering Research Council under award number 889088999 and by Philips Radio Communication Systems Ltd. of Cambridge under an industrial studentship

Excess Loss Model for Low Elevation Links in Urban Areas for UAVs

In this paper we analyze the link between an UAV and a ground control station in an urban area. This link shows a unique geometry which is somewhere in between the purely terrestrial (e.g., a macro-cell channel) and the land mobile satellite case (LMS). We describe a measurement campaign which reproduces the UAV link conditions and shows how the excess loss is mainly dependent on the elevation angle and fairly independent of the distance. Finally, we propose a simple physical model for predicting the excess loss based on a combination of diffracted and reflected components. Results from this model are in good agreement with the measurements

Angular dispersion of radio waves in mobile channels

Multi-antenna techniques are an important solution for significantly increasing the bandwidth efficiency of mobile wireless data transmission systems. Effective and reliable design of these multi-antenna systems requires thorough knowledge of radiowave propagation in the urban environment. The aim of the work presented in this thesis is to obtain a better physical understanding of radiowave propagation in mobile radio channels in order to provide a basis for the improvement of radiowave propagation prediction techniques for urban environments using knowledge from 3-D propagation experiments and simulations combined with space-wave modelling. In particular, the work focusses on: the development of an advanced 3-D mobile channel sounding system, obtaining propagation measurement data from mobile radio propagation experiments, the analysis of measured data and the modelling of angular dispersive scattering effects for the improvement of deterministic propagation prediction models. The first part of the study presents the design, implementation and verification of a wideband high-resolution measurement system for the characterisation of angular dispersion in mobile channels. The system uses complex impulse response data obtained from a novel 3-D tilted-cross switched antenna array as input to an improved version of 3-D Unitary ESPRIT. It is capable of characterising the delay and angular properties of physically-nonstationary radio channels at moderate urban speeds with high resolution in both azimuth and elevation. For the first time, omnidirectional video data that were captured during the measurements are used in combination with the measurement results to accurately identify and relate the received radio waves directly to the actual environment while moving through it. The second part of the study presents the results of experiments in which the highresolution measurement system, described in the first part, is used in several mobile outdoor experiments in different scenarios. The objective of these measurements was to gain more knowledge in order to improve the understanding of radiowave propagation. From these results the dispersive effects in the angular domain, caused by rough building surfaces and other irregular structures was paid particular attention. These effects not only influence the total amount of received power in dense urban environments, but can also have a large impact on the performance and deployment of multi-antenna systems. To improve the data representation and support further data analysis a hierarchical clustering method is presented that can successfully identify clusters of multipath signal components in multidimensional data. By using the data obtained from an omnidirectional video camera the clusters can be related directly to the environment and the scattering effects of specific objects can be isolated. These results are important in order to improve and calibrate deterministic propagation models. In the third part of the study a new method is presented to account for the angular dispersion caused by irregular surfaces in ray-tracing based propagation prediction models. The method is based on assigning an effective roughness to specific surfaces. Unlike the conventional reflection reduction factor for Gaussian surfaces, that only reduces the ray power, the new method also distributes power in the angular domain. The results of clustered measurement data are used to calibrated the model and show that this leads to improved channel representations that are better matched to the real-world channel behavior