Propagation over a Plane Earth:
In many practical situations, the free space model gives a very bad estimate of the actual path loss. Especially in situations when the received signal is a superposition of many reflected waves, the average received power is in most cases much lower than predicted by the free space model. This is the case in many mobile radio applications, where the receiver antenna is typically very close to the ground. To give some insight, let us consider a very simplified situation, with one direct line-of-sight transmission path and one indirect path that is reflected by the ground, as shown in Fig. 7.1. The received signal is now equal to the sum of two signals, the direct signal and the indirect signal. Both are subject to a path loss given by the free space model, but the indirect signal has traversed a slightly longer distance. The indirect signal has a phase difference relative to the direct signal, corresponding to its somewhat longer distance and to the phase shift at the ground reflection.To simplifies the path loss derivation, it is common practice to assume that the ground reflection is lossless and causes a phase change of 180 degrees. Simple geometry then shows that the phase difference between the direct and indirect signal is
where d is the distance between antennas and and receive antenna heights respectively.
and
are the heights of transmit
when the distance between the two antennas is assumed much larger that the antenna heights, which is true in most practical situations, this phase difference is approximately,
The path loss may now be approximated as
This result can be further simplified by the approximation sin(x)~x when d is much larger than the antenna heights, as
This is an inverse fourth-power loss formula in distance, as compared to an inversesecond-order loss formula for the free space case. A more detailed derivation of this result may be found in [3]. In decibel scale it becomes
and here it is clearly seen that a doubling of the distance now leads to a 12 dB loss in average received power instead of 6 dB as in free space. Moreover, we see that increasing one of the antenna heights by a factor of 2 leads to a 6 dB power gain.With the approximations made, there is no carrier frequency effect in this formula.The reason for the increased path loss is that the two signals add destructively. therefore,pathloss is given as, L=32.5+20 logf +20 logd plane-Earth propagation, which differs from the freespace in three ways, l. As a consequence of the assumption that d >> , and the angle is small, and wavelength cancels out of the equation, leaving it to be essentially frequency independent. 2. It shows an inverse fourth-power law, rather than the inverse-square law of free space propagation. These points to a far more rapid attenuation of the power received. 3. It shows the effect of the transmit and receive antenna heights on propagation losses. The dependence on antenna height makes intuitive sense. Program to find the variation of pathloss with distance: f1=50*10^6; f2=100*10^6; f3=500*10^6; f4=1*10^9; f5=5*10^9;
f6=10*10^9; x1=20*log(f1); x2=20*log(f2); x3=20*log(f3); x4=20*log(f4); x5=20*log(f5); x6=20*log(f6); d=0:10:500; y=20*log(d); lp1=-(32.5+x1+y); lp2=-(32.5+x2+y); lp3=-(32.5+x3+y); lp4=-(32.5+x4+y); lp5=-(32.5+x5+y); lp6=-(32.5+x6+y); plot(d,lp1,d,lp2,d,lp3,d,lp4,d,lp5,d,lp6) axis('square') xlabel('distance in km') ylabel('pathloss lp in dB') Output:
-300 -310 -320 -330
pathloss lp in dB
-340 -350 -360 -370 -380 -390 0
100
200 300 distance in km
400
500
