Radio Propagation and Adaptive Antennas for Wireless Communication Networks, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER ONEWireless Communication Links with Fading

The purpose of this chapter is to familiarize the reader with the basic propagation characteristics that describe various wireless communication channels, such as terrestrial, atmospheric, and ionospheric from VHF to the X-band. Well-known standards in wireless communication [1–10] are introduced for the prediction of path losses and fading effects of any radio signal in various communication links, and finally, new possibilities that can be obtained using smart antennas are discussed.

1.1.  Radio Communication Link

Different radio communication links (land, land-to-air, air-to-air) covering different atmospheric and ionospheric conditions include several components having a plethora of physical principles and processes, with their own independent or correlated working characteristics and operating elements. A simple scheme of such as a radio communication link consists of a transmitter (T), a receiver (R), and a propagation channel. The main output characteristics of such a link depend on the conditions of radio propagation in different kinds of environments, as shown in Figure 1.1. According to Reference 6, there are three main independent electronic and electromagnetic design tasks related to this wireless communication network. The first task is the transmitter antenna operation, including the specification of the electronic equipment that controls all operations within the transmitter. The second task is to understand, model, ...