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Duke University
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
ECE 186
Lecture 8
Two Ray Ground Reflection Model
Even when there is a direct line of sight (LOS) path between the mobile phone and the base station there is
typically a strong multipath signal resulting from ground reflection. The angle of incidence is always equal to
the angle of reflection. The ground is typically treated as a perfect reflector as a first order approximation. It is
critical to understand what happens when a transverse electromagnetic wave is incident on a good conductor.
The underlying boundary condition is that the tangential component of the electric field must be zero at the
interface. This means that a perpendicularly polarized EM wave must undergo a 180 phase shift at the surface.
A parallel polarized EM wave simply reflects with no change in phase due to the reflection.
In summary, E
= E
= -E
= 0
.
To analyze the ground reflection process, we must first write the expression for the transmitted electric field,
which is both a function of time and space:
E(J, t) =
E
0
J
0
J
cos _
c
_t -
J
c
]_
Where E is the electric field magnitude, E
0
is the electric field measured at a distant J
0
, d is any distance
beyond J
0
,
c
is the carrier angular frequency, and c = 310
8
m/s is the free space velocity of light.
The total electric field E
TOT
is the summation of E
LOS
and the ground reflected wave E
g
.
Ybarra
)
2
+ J
2
- (b
t
- b
)
2
+ J
2
When the TX-RX separation distance d is very large compared to b
t
+ b
(d >> b
t
+ b
= J
ii
- J
i
=
2b
t
b
J
by using a Taylor series expansion on the form 1 + x
2
for small x. The equation form for simplification is
J
_
1 + [
h
t
+ h
r
d
2
as well as J
_
1 + [
h
t
- h
r
d
2
The Taylor series expansion of 1 + x
2
about x = u (also known as the Maclaurin expansion) is 1 +
x
2
2
.
becomes
= J _1 +
1
2
_
b
t
+ b
r
J
_
2
_ - J _1 +
1
2
_
b
t
- b
r
J
_
2
_ =
2b
t
b
J
The phase difference 0
=
2n
x
=
o
c
A
C
and the time delay between the two wavefronts is =
A
C
.
As d becomes large compared to , the J
i
and J
ii
can be approximated as d for the magnitude, but not for the
phase terms.
The received E field is a sinusoid with angular frequency
C
. To find the magnitude of the E field, we can
choose any convenient time and use phasors. Consider t =
d
||
C
and the use of phasors
_E
101
_J, t =
J
ii
c
__ = _
E
0
J
0
J
z_
c
_
J
ii
- J
i
c
__ +
E
0
J
0
J
zu_ = _
E
0
J
0
J
(1z0
+ 1zu)_
|E
101
(J) | =
E
0
J
0
J
|1z0
+ 1zu| =
E
0
J
0
J
(cos(0
) + 1)
2
+ sin
2
(0
) =
E
0
J
0
J
2 +2cos(0
)
Using the trigonometric identity 2 + 2cos(0
) = 4cos
2
[
0
2
|E
101
(J)| = 2
E
0
J
0
J
_cos _
0
2
]_
This is an approximation of the magnitude of the received E field for the two ray ground reflection model for
parallel polarization.
0
=
2n
z
=
c
=
2
c
b
t
b
Jc