Introduction:

“RF is RF,” is an expression often heard from RF engineers. However, the understanding of RF propagation is far from intuitive, and the lack of this understanding can adversely affect the system performance. How does the RF energy propagate through space? How is it impacted by the presence of buildings, mountains, lakes, vegetation, and other natural and man-made structures? How does one “budget” for the gains and losses that inevitably occur on the way from the transmitter to the receiver? These are the issues at the heart of this course. The course will give you the understanding you need to identify the right propagation model to use in a given situation and apply it correctly. It will help you understand and anticipate the effect of natural and man-made structures ranging from such fixed objects as a mountain to a highly variable one as a truck passing by on an adjacent highway. A solid grasp of these phenomena will help you appropriately “budget” for them which, in turn, will help you design or optimize a network within existing budgetary and KPI constraints.

Audience:

Engineers new to the field of RF engineering, managers, or other personnel responsible for RF systems whether wireless, cellular/mobile, microwave, or other, will benefit from a comprehensive understanding of RF optimization, spectrum utilization, spectrum planning and capacity and quality of service management for RF systems. An electrical engineering degree or equivalent background is desired, but not required.

Prerequisites:

You should have at least a year of experience in the field of communication engineering, fixed or wireless telephony, IT, or related fields, comfort with Mathematics and Physics, and basic understanding of RF systems such as might be gained by taking either of the courses listed above.

Customize it:

This 2-3-day RF Propagation course will be customized to your needs and specifications. Enowireless will assist you in identifying those needs and specifications. A word to the wise, there are many vendors of wireless training. They will typically have a broad and general course, one size fits all, already developed and just put your organization’s name on the title slide. This minimizes their effort and time investment. At Enowireless, every course is made to your exact and exacting specifications. We help you ensure what you are getting is what you really need even if at the beginning you weren’t too sure of what that was. We fit the class to your needs. We never fit you into our “standard”, one size fits all, class.

Objectives:

Provide an understanding of RF performance degradation issues, testing and measurement techniques, data collection methodologies, post processing methodologies and tools, drive testing, model tuning, spectrum planning, hand off considerations, morphology analysis, cell splitting, antenna tilt azimuth, noise, SNR, BER, SIR, frequency planning, interference, in order to allow engineers and technical personnel to manage and maintain system performance of RF related systems.

Course Outline

The Electromagnetic Spectrum FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB): Structure and mission Types of FCC licensed radio services Spectrum groups and typical applications for each --HF --VHF --UHF/SHF --Microwave --Millimeter wave Radio Frequency (RF) Transmission, Reception, and Propagation Glossary of common radio propagation terms and acronyms Why do we need to study propagation? Relationship of propagation phenomenon to wireless network modeling and design Theory of radio frequency (RF) propagation Examining the basic radio wave components: (E) and (H) fields Sky wave vs. ground wave propagation Line-of-Sight (LOS) and non-Line-of-Sight (non-LOS) propagation Free space path loss models Frequency and wavelength calculations Basic modulation theory Bits per second per hertz efficiency Bit rate vs. symbol rate Digital and analog modulation: Advantages and disadvantages Wireless Multiple Access Methods, Applications, and Comparisons FDMA TDMA CDMA Factors Affecting the Behavior of Radio Waves: Path Attenuation Reflection Refraction Scattering Diffraction Earth’s curvature Fresnel Zones Radio Propagation in a Mobile Environnent Multipath fading --Rician, Raleigh and Nakagami fading --Threshold crossing rate and average fade duration --Delay spread --Scatter function, WSSUS model and SCRM model --Doppler shift effects --Coherence time and coherence bandwidth Dealing with channel impairments --Forward error correction (FEC) --Interleaving --Channel coding theory and practice --Voice coding: Why do we need it? Basics of voice coding and decoding --Waveform coders --Source coders (vocoders) --Hybrid coders Antenna Configurations and Performance in the Context of RF Propagation Issues Basic antennas: Isotropic and dipole radiators Concept of antenna gain and gain references Calculating and measuring antenna gain Effective Radiated Power (ERP) Antenna patterns and pattern features How antennas achieve gain Reflector techniques, array techniques Families of antennas used in wireless: Architecture and characteristics Collinear vertical antennas Horizontal arrays: Yagis, log-periodics, etc. Implications of propagation driving antenna selection Multipath scattering in mobile clutter environment Beamwidths and tilt considerations for base station antennas Radiation patterns Gain antenna types, composition and operational principles Antenna gains, patterns, and selection principles Antenna system testing and evaluation Radio Propagation Models and Their Uses Simple analytical models General area models Point-to-point models Local variability models The Okumura model The Hata model The EURO COST-231 model Morphological zones Walfisch-Betroni/Walfisch-Ikegami models Propagation modeling tools Indoor and pico-cell prediction models Urban model predictions for macro, micro and pico cells ITU-R Propagation Models and Prediction Methods Terrain effects Propagation over smooth earth Propagation over smooth earth Propagation over irregular terrain Diffraction and microwave interference Diffraction over irregular terrain Diffraction in microwave interference (site shielding) Ground and obstacles, effects of buildings, outside Short-range outdoor propagation Link Budgets Understanding the link budget equation Line-of-sight (LOS) path loss models The Fresnel zone Path loss and free space path loss Antenna gain Frequency considerations Atmospheric, weather and rain attenuation Terrain factors Multipath loss Rician and Raleigh fading considerations Cochannel interference Transmission line loss A typical link budget calculation for a cellular network Conclusion: Recap, Q/A, and Evaluation