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Ybarra

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

for parallel polarization, E

= -E

for perpendicular polarization, and 0

= 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
.



















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To obtain the magnitude of E


TOT
, we must obtain the path length difference between E
g
and E
LOS
.
This is easily accomplished using image theory. Consider the following diagram


















By applying Pythagoreans theorem twice, we can obtain the distance the LOS wave travels and the ground
reflected wave. The line of sight distance will be denoted as d and the distance traveled by the ground reflected
wave will be denoted by d.

E
L0S
(J
i
, t) =
E
0
J
0
J
i
cos _
c
_t -
J
i
c
__

The ground reflected wave can be written as

E
g
(J
ii
, t) =
E
0
J
0
J
ii
cos _
c
_t -
J
ii
c
__

where is the reflection coefficient. The boundary conditions at the air-ground interface have already been
discussed and are represented by:
||
= +1 and
J
= -1. Assuming parallel polarization


E
101
(J, t) =
E
0
J
0
J
i
cos _
c
_t -
J
i
c
__ +
E
0
J
0
J
ii
cos _
c
_t -
J
ii
c
__

The path length difference = J
ii
- J
i
= (b
t
+ b

)
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

), the path length


difference can be approximated by

Ybarra

= 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

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