Introduction to Wireless Digital Communication: A Signal Processing Perspective

5.5 Introduction to Wireless Propagation

Of all the impairments, the propagation channel has the most impact on the design of a wireless receiver. The wireless channel causes the transmitted signal to lose power as it propagates from the transmitter to the receiver. Reflections, diffraction, and scattering create multiple propagation paths between the transmitter and the receiver, each with a different delay. The net result is that wireless propagation leads to a loss of received signal power as well as the presence of multipath, which creates frequency selectivity in the channel. In this section, we provide an introduction to the key mechanisms of propagation. Then we rationalize the need for developing models and explain the distinction between ...