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CENTER FOR ADVANCED STUDIES IN ENGINEERING (CASE)

Midterm Examinations Summer 2008 (Graduate Programme)


Course: ECE-7703 WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS

Total marks 100

Time Allowed 2 hrs

Closed Book, one page (A4) allowed with hand written notes

Problem 1 (30 points):


Part a (5 points): The handoff margin, given by = Pr
large or too small. Why?

handof f

Pr

minimum usable ,

cannot be too

Part b (5 points): Explain the difference between co-channel interference and adjacent channel
interference.
Part c (5 points): Keeping the reuse ratio same while decreasing the size of each cell increases the
system capacity. However, this does not have any effect on the co-channel interference. Argue why
the co-channel interference remains the same when cell size is reduced.
Part d (5 points): The penalty for improved S/I due to sectoring is a decrease in trunking efficiency.
Explain why this is true?
Part e (5 points): Briefly explain two main advantages of power control in cellular systems.
Part f (5 points): Briefly explain (support it with a diagram) the near-far effect with regards to
adjacent Channel Interference.
Problem 2 (20 points):
Part a (10 points): Consider an idealized hexagonal model of a cellular system with base stations
at the centers of the cells. The cluster size is 13 and we measure the aggregate interference from the
first tier of co-channel interferers to be 20 dBs below the weakest in-cell power level. What is the
path loss exponent for the environment?
Part b (10 points): Repeat part (a) if 120o sectoring was incorporated and still the aggregate
interference from the first tier of co-channel interferers was 20 dBs below the weakest in-cell power
level.
Problem 3 (20 points):
Cellular systems today are moving from large cells (macrocells) of radius around 1 mile to smaller
microcells and picocells, of radius from 100 to 1000 feet. The reason for this migration is that smaller
cells offer considerably more system capacity. The downside is that if cell size is smaller, more cells
are needed to cover a given city, resulting in greater expense (base station cost) and network complexity (more handoffs and routing is more difficult). This problem demonstrates the capacity increase
as cell size decreases. Consider a square city that is 100 square kilometers. Suppose you design a
cellular system for this city with square cells, where every cell (regardless of cell size) can support
100 users (in practice the number of users that can be supported per cell is mostly independent of

cell size as long as the propagation model and power scale appropriately).
Part a (5 points): What is the total number of active users that your system can support for a cell
size of 1 square kilometer?
Part b (5 points): What cell size would you use if you require that your system support 250,000
active users?
Now we consider some financial implications based on the fact that users do not talk continuously.
Assume that Friday from 5-6 pm is the busiest hour for cell phone users. During this time, the
average user places a single call, and this call lasts two minutes. Your system should be designed
such that the subscribers will tolerate no greater than a two percent blocking probability during this
P
k
peak hour. Blocking probability is computed using the Erlang B model: Pb = (AC /C!)/ C
k=1 A /k!)
where C is the number of channels and A = U H for U the number of users, the average number
of call requests per unit time, and H the average duration of a call.
Part c (5 points): How many total subscribers can be supported in the macrocell system (1 square
Km cells) and in the microcell system (with cell size from part (b))?
Part d(5 points): If a base station costs $500, 000, what are the base station costs for each system?
Part e (5 points): If users pay 50 dollars a month in both systems, what will be the monthly revenue
in each case? How long will it take to recoup the infrastructure (base station) cost for each system?.

Problem 4 (30 points):


The coverage area of a cellular system is defined as the percentage of locations within a cell with
received power Pr that exceeds a desired received power threshold Po . In this problem we derive a
formula for coverage area for a cell with combined path loss and shadowing, and show how coverage
area varies with the path loss exponent and the variance of the shadowing. The received signal power
is given by the simplified pass loss model and shadowing:

Pr (d) = P (d) + X = Pr (do ) 10n log10

d
do

+ X

(1)

where X is assumed to be a zero-mean Gaussian r.v. with variance 2 .


Part a (8 points): Suppose the desired threshold value for the receiver signal power is Po dBm.
Obtain a general formula for the non-outage probability P (P r(d) P o) as a function of P , Po , and
. Evaluate this formula for Po = 10 dBm, Pt = 30 dBm, n = 3, d0 = 1m, = 6 dB, and d = 10 m.
Part b (6 points): The coverage area of a circular cell is obtained by evaluating the non-outage
probability obtained in part (a) for all locations within the cell and then normalizing by the total
area of the cell:

C=

1 Z
P (Pr Po in dA) dA.
Acell cellArea

Using polar coordinates, find an expression for this coverage.


2

(2)

Part c (8 points): Does C increase or decrease with ? Why?


Part d (8 points): Does C increase or decrease with n? Why?
Problem 5 (20 points):
The signal transmitted by a base station has a power of 1 mW at distance of 1m (do ) from the
transmitter. Measurements have shown that the propagation path loss exponent is n = 3 up to a
distance of 1 Km (d1 ) and n = 4 beyond that. Assume that the total Noise power at the receiver is
-125 dBm.
Part a (6 points): Compute the SINR(d) in dBs for 2 cases where d d1 and d > d1 .
Part b (6 points): Find the maximum cell radius that can be achieved, assuming that for adequate
signal quality, a signal to noise ratio of at least 15 dB is required.
Part c (8 points) Repeat part (b) in the presence of log-normal shadowing with = 6 dB and the
outage probability to be less than 1 %. ( Note: Q1 (.01) 2.3 ).

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