SOE CCE

Chapter 5
Extra Remarks
Dr. Samir Omar

10/18/16

CENG630 - Wireless Communications and

Pervasive

Extra Remarks (1)

SOE CCE

Antennas are passive devices, which mean the power

radiated by a transmitting antenna cannot be greater
than the power entering from the transmitter.
The radiating power is always less than the power at
its input because of losses.
It should be recalled that antenna gain in one
direction results from a concentration of power and is
accompanied by a loss in other directions.
Antennas are reciprocal devices; that is, the same
antenna design works equally well as a transmitting
or a receiving antenna with the same amount of
gain.
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CENG630 - Wireless Communications and

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Extra Remarks (2)

SOE CCE

The actual radiation pattem for the

isotropic antenna is a sphere with the
antenna at the center.
The Advantages of sectoring are:
It requires coverage of smaller area by each
antenna and hence requires lower power to
transmit radio signals.
It helps in reducing cochannel interference in
a cellular architecture and thereby enhancing
the spectrum efficiency of the overall system.
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CENG630 - Wireless Communications and

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Polarization

SOE CCE

It is important that the polarization

should be the same at both ends of a
communication link.
Wireless communication systems
usually use vertical polarization
because this is more convenient for
use with portable and mobile
antennas.
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CENG630 - Wireless Communications and

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Front-to-back Ratio

SOE CCE

The direction of maximum radiation in

the horizontal plane is considered to be
the front of the antenna, and the
direction 180 degree from the front is
considered to be its back.
It is a measure of the antennas ability
to focus radiated power in the intended
direction
successfully,
without
interfering with other antennas behind
it.
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CENG630 - Wireless Communications and

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ANTENNAS AT CELL-SITE

SOE CCE

When cell sizes are small as in high-traffic areas,

directional base-station antennas are often tilted
downwards in order to reduce interference to
neighbouring cells, thereby reducing cochannel
interference.
This is accompanied with slight reduction in its
coverage area that can be compensated with
higher transmitting power.
This downtilt can either be done mechanically by
mounting the antenna so that it aims downwards
as a slight angle of the order of 9 degrees or so.
It can also be done electronically.
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CENG630 - Wireless Communications and

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ANTENNAS AT CELL-SITE

SOE CCE

There is a need for high-gain (usually

6-dB
or
9-dB)
omnidirectional
antennas
and
antennas
with
beamwidths of 60 degrees or 120
degrees for sectored cells.

Narrower
beamwidths
are
sometimes needed for filling weak or
dead signal spots.
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CENG630 - Wireless Communications and

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Separation between Antennas

at Cell Site

SOE CCE

The separation between two receiving

antennas for a cellular system operating at 900
MHz should be greater than or equal to 8 c for
an antenna height of 30 meters and the
separation of greater than or equal to 14 c for
an antenna height of 50 meters.
For example, at 900 MHz, the separation of 8 c
between two receiving antennas creates a -2
dB difference between their received signal
levels, which is tolerable for the advantageous
use of a diversity scheme.
10/18/16

CENG630 - Wireless Communications and

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Separation between Antennas

at Cell Site

SOE CCE

The
minimum
separation
between
a
transmitting antenna and a receiving
antenna is necessary to avoid receiver
desensitisation and the intermodulation
problem.
It is possible to use a single antenna for both
transmitting and receiving using a duplexer.
Only one transmitting antenna is needed
with an omnidirectional radiation pattern;
otherwise, one transmitting antenna is
needed for each sector of a cell.
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CENG630 - Wireless Communications and

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Separation between Antennas

at Cell Site

SOE CCE

At the cell-site, diversity can be

achieved by using two polarizations,
typically at 45-degree angles to the
vertical.
This
arrangement
takes
into
consideration the fact that the signal
polarization may be randomised by
reflections in a mobile environment.
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Quarter-Radius Rule

SOE CCE

When a cell-site is chosen on the map, there is a 50%

chance that the site location can be acquired.
So an antenna location can be found within a quarter of
the size of the cell RI4, where R is the radius of the cell.
This is termed as the quarter-radius rule.
For example, if the radius of a cell is 12 km, the cellsite antenna can be located within a 3-km radius (Rl4).
The change in the cell-site antenna within a 3-km
radius around the center of the cell would not affect the
coverage pattern at a distance 12 km away.
The quarter-radius rule can be applied only on
relatively flat terrain, not in a hilly area.
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MOBILE ANTENNAS (vehiclemounted)

SOE CCE

A very common configuration of mobile antenna

consists of a /4 antenna connected by a coil that
matches impedances with a /2 antenna
mounted collinearly above it.
This arrangement has a gain of about 3 dB
compared with the quarter-wave monopole which
is normally used with portable phones.
The requirement of a mobile (vehicle-mounted)
antenna is an omnidirectional antenna because in
a mobile radio environment, the scattered signals
arrive at the mobile unit from every direction with
equal probability and from different elevations.
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MOBILE ANTENNAS (vehiclemounted)

SOE CCE

In glass-mounted mobile antennas, there

is no need to drill a hole in the sidewindow glass of the vehicle.
The signal energy is coupled through the
glass with slight loss of energy coupling.
Glass-mounted antennas cannot be
installed on the shaded glass found in
some motor vehicles because this type
of glass has a high metal content.
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MOBILE ANTENNAS (vehiclemounted)

SOE CCE

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SOE CCE

DESIGN OF OMNI-DIRECTIONAL
ANTENNA CELLULAR SYSTEM

the carrier-to-interference (C/I) ratio requirement

is determined by the transmission and modulation
scheme adopted in a system and is specified for
an acceptable voice quality.
A voice quality is termed as acceptable if 10-15%
of the mobile subscribers rate the received signal
quality as good or excellent.
In addition to cochannel interference, there is
always the inherent background noise.
However, in an interference dominated mobile
environment, we may neglect the background
noise.
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SOE CCE

DESIGN OF OMNI-DIRECTIONAL
ANTENNA CELLULAR SYSTEM

Let NI be the number of cochannel interfering cells and Ii be

the interference power caused by transmissions from the
ith interfering cochannel cell.
C is proportional to r-, where r is the distance between the
mobile and the serving base station and is a propagation
path-loss exponent determined by the actual terrain
environment and varies in the range 2 5.
The separation between cochannel cells, D is mainly
determined by C/I that is required to achieve the desired
transmission quality.
Also C/I should take into consideration the fade margin that
is necessary to take care of statistical fluctuations in the
desired received signal level induced by the mobile
environment.
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Cell Sectoring

SOE CCE

Increasing the value of K (cluster size) can

increase C/I.
When k increases, the number of frequency
channels available in a cell decreases for a
given frequency spectrum.
This results in overall decrease of spectrum
efficiency that is contrary to the advantage of
frequency-reuse scheme in a cellular system.
So it is needed that when the call traffic
increases, the frequency spectrum efficiency
should be enhanced without increasing the
cluster size K.
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Cell Sectoring

SOE CCE

Instead of increasing the cluster size K beyond 7,

a suitable arrangement of directional antennas
in place of an omnidirectional antenna at each
cell-site can be deployed to reduce cochannel
interference, and thereby increasing C/I.
This simply means that each omni-cell is divided
into three or six sectors radially while retaining
the same number of channels per cell in the 7cell cluster and accordingly uses three or six
directional antennas at a cell-site.
This technique reduces cochannel interference.
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CENG630 - Wireless Communications and

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Three-sector Cellular System

Design

SOE CCE

The mobile unit situated at the boundary of its

operating cell, C1 (with radius R) in the worst
case will now experience co-channel interference
from corresponding cochannel sectors S1 of two
cochannel cells (C2 and C3) out of six cochannel
interfering cells (see fig. 5.11).
This is mainly due to the fact that the
interference is effective in only the forward
direction because the front-to-back ratio of a
cell-site directional antenna is at least 10 dB or
more in a mobile radio environment.
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Three-sector Cellular System

Design

SOE CCE

There is an alternate way of configuring

sectored
cellular
pattern
by
installing
directional antennas at the selected corners of
the regular hexagonal cellular pattern instead
of installing them at the center of the cell.
For example, a directional antenna is installed
at a point where three adjacent cells C1, C2
and C3 meet, that is, junction T, as shown in
the figure.
Similarly, other directional antennas are
installed at the corners as shown by dark dots.
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SOE CCE

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Six-sector Cellular System

Design

SOE CCE

Figure 5.13 depicts realistic coverage

of a practical 60-beam directional
antenna in one sector.
Figure 5.14 depicts realistic antenna
coverage of practical 60-beam
directional antennas in all the six
sectors of a cell, and overlap of
antenna radiation patterns in 6sector cellular configuration.
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SOE CCE

10/18/16

CENG630 - Wireless Communications and

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Six-sector Cellular System

Design

SOE CCE

The mobile unit

situated
at
the
boundary of its
operating cell (with
radius R) in worst
case
will
now
experience
cochannel
interference from
corresponding
cochannel sectors
of only one out of
six interfering cells.

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SOE CCE

Cell Sectoring Disadvantages

Cell sectoring depends upon proper installation of cell-site

directional antennas to improve system capacity as well as
enhance signal quality.
But this also results into increase in the number of handoff
occurrence and trunking inefficiencies.
In a 3-sector or 6-sector cellular configuration, each sector
behaves like a new cell with a different cell size and shape.
Channels allocated to the original cell are partitioned between the
different sectors of a cell, thereby reducing available number of
channels in each sector.
Moreover, handoff has to be made each time a mobile subscriber
moves from one sector to another sector of the same cell.
This results in substantial increase of network load on switching
and control link elements such as BSC and MTSO/MSC of the
cellular system.
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SOE CCE

Comparison of Performance in K
= 7 and K = 4 Systems
A K = 7 cell-pattern system gives adequate
cochannel reuse distance in an omnidirectional
cellular system having normal traffic.
The use of sectoring increases the signal-tointerference ratio at the mobile units.
It is possible to reduce the frequency reuse factor
from K = 7 to K = 4 by using three- and six-sector
cells.
This reduction in frequency reuse from seven to
four would result in a capacity increase from 1.67
and 2.3 respectively, allowing an increase in the
number of simultaneous communication links.
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