Radiowave Propagation and Smart Antennas for Wireless Communications

This text combines basic and advanced topics of radiowave propagation and smart antennas into a single volume. The book is interdisciplinary in nature and contains material drawn from the electromagnetics and communications areas. Physical phenomena leading to the modelling and prediction of path loss, and characterizing the small-scale and medium-scale fluctuations of the received signal, are treated in detail. Several new path loss models are included. Both narrowband and wideband radio channel characterizations are discussed. Statistical descriptions of geometrically based single bounce scattering models that are useful in developing spatial channel models for smart arrays are presented. Principles of diversity and smart antennas for reducing fading and co-channel interference are presented. Performance evaluation of these arrays in the presence of fading and shadowing is treated. Both TDMA and CMDA systems are considered. Effects of element mutual coupling and correlation in limiting the system performance are elaborated.Finally, principles of multiple-input multiple-output communication systems that are increasingly becoming attractive owing to their enormous bit rate capabilities are covered. Several practical examples are worked out throughout the text. Additional problems that help the reader assimilate the material and advance to higher-level topics are included at the end of each chapter.