Shannon Capacity CDMA vs

OFDMA
January 26, 2015Capacity, Fundamentals4G, LTE, OFDM, Shannon Capacity, SNR

We have previously discussed Shannon Capacity of CDMA and OFMDA, here we will
discuss it again in a bit more detail. Let us assume that we have 20 MHz bandwidth for both
the systems which is divided amongst 20 users. For OFDMA we assume that each user gets 1
MHz bandwidth and there are no guard bands or pilot carriers. For CDMA we assume that
each user utilizes full 20 MHz bandwidth. We can say that for OFDMA each user has a
dedicated channel whereas for CDMA the channel is shared between 20 simultaneous users.
We know that Shannon Capacity is given as
C=B*log2(1+SNR)
or in the case of CDMA
C=B*log2(1+SINR)
where B is the bandwidth and SINR is the signal to noise plus interference ratio. For
OFDMA the SNR is given as
SNR=Pu/(B*No)
where Pu is the signal power of a single user and No is the Noise Power Spectral Density.
For CDMA the calculation of SINR is a bit more complicated as we have to take into account
the Multiple Access Interference. If the total number of users is u the SINR is calculated as
SINR=Pu/(B*No+(u-1)*Pu)
The code given below plots the capacity of CDMA and OFDMA as a function of Noise
Power Spectral Density No.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% CAPACITY OF CDMA and OFDMA
% u - Number of users
% Pu - Power of a single user
% No - Noise Power Spectral Density
%

% Copyright RAYmaps (www.raymaps.com)

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

clear all
close all

u=20;
Pu=1;
No=1e-8:1e-8:1e-6;

B=20e6;
C_CDMA=u*B*log2(1+Pu./(B*No+(u-1)*Pu));

B=1e6;
C_OFDMA=u*B*log2(1+Pu./(B*No));

plot(No,C_CDMA/1e6);hold on
plot(No,C_OFDMA/1e6,'r');hold off
xlabel('Noise Power Spectral Density (No)')
ylabel('Capacity (Mbps)')
legend('CDMA','OFDMA')
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Shannon
Capacity of CDMA and OFDMA
We see that the capacity of OFDMA is much more sensitive to noise than CDMA. Within the
low noise region the capacity of OFDMA is much better than CDMA but as the noise
increases the capacity of the two schemes converges. In fact it was seen that as the noise PSD
is further increased the two curves completely overlap each other. Therefore it can be
concluded that OFDMA is the preferred technique when we are operating in the high SNR
regime.
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Sum of Sinusoids Fading

Simulator
January 6, 2015Channel ModelingChannel, Fading, Multipath, Rayleigh, Rayleigh Fading

We have previously looked at frequency domain fading simulators i.e. simulators that define
the Doppler components in the frequency domain and then perform an IDFT to get the time
domain signal. These simulators include Smiths Simulator, Youngs Simulator and our very
own Computationally Efficient Rayleigh Fading Simulator. Another technique that has been
widely reported in the literature is Sum of Sinusoids Method. As the name suggests this
method generates the Doppler components in the time domain and then sums them up to
generate the time domain fading envelope. There are three parameters that define the
properties of the generated signal.
1) Number of sinusoids Higher the number better the properties of the generated signal but
greater
the
computational
complexity

2) Angle of arrival This can be generated statistically or deterministically, spread from pi

to
pi.
3) Phase of the arriving wave This is uniformly distributed between pi and pi.
The MATLAB code below gives three similar sum of sinusoids techniques for generating a
Rayleigh faded envelope [1].
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% SUM OF SINUSOIDS FADING SIMULATORS
% fd - Doppler frequency
% fs - Sampling frequency
% ts - Sampling period
% N - Number of sinusoids
%
% www.raymaps.com
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

clear all
close all

fd=70;
fs=1000000;
ts=1/fs;
t=0:ts:1;
N=100;

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Method 1 - Clarke
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

x=zeros(1,length(t));
y=zeros(1,length(t));

for n=1:N;n
alpha=(rand-0.5)*2*pi;
phi=(rand-0.5)*2*pi;
x=x+randn*cos(2*pi*fd*t*cos(alpha)+phi);
y=y+randn*sin(2*pi*fd*t*cos(alpha)+phi);
end
z=(1/sqrt(N))*(x+1i*y);
r1=abs(z);

plot(t,10*log10(r1))
hold on

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Method 2 - Pop, Beaulieu
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
x=zeros(1,length(t));
y=zeros(1,length(t));

for n=1:N;n
alpha=2*pi*n/N;
phi=(rand-0.5)*2*pi;
x=x+randn*cos(2*pi*fd*t*cos(alpha)+phi);
y=y+randn*sin(2*pi*fd*t*cos(alpha)+phi);

end
z=(1/sqrt(N))*(x+1i*y);
r2=abs(z);

plot(t,10*log10(r2),'r')
hold on

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Method 3 - Chengshan Xiao
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
x=zeros(1,length(t));
y=zeros(1,length(t));

for n=1:N;n
phi=(rand-0.5)*2*pi;
theta=(rand-0.5)*2*pi;
alpha=(2*pi*n+theta)/N;
x=x+randn*cos(2*pi*fd*t*cos(alpha)+phi);
y=y+randn*sin(2*pi*fd*t*cos(alpha)+phi);
end
z=(1/sqrt(N))*(x+1i*y);
r3=abs(z);

plot(t,10*log10(r3),'g')
hold off

xlabel('Time(sec)')
ylabel('Envelope(dB)')
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

All the three techniques given above are quite accurate in generating a Rayleigh faded
envelope with the desired statistical properties. The accuracy of these techniques increases as
the number of sinusoids goes to infinity (we have tested these techniques with up to 1000
sinusoids but realistically speaking even 100 sinusoids are enough). If we want to compare
the three techniques in terms of the Level Crossing Rate (LCR) and Average Fade Duration
(AFD) we can say that the first and third technique are a bit more accurate than the second
technique. Therefore we can conclude that a statistically distributed angle of arrival is a better
choice than a deterministically distributed angle of arrival. Also, if we look at the
autocorrelation of the in-phase and quadrature components we see that for the first and third
case we get a zero order Bessel function of the first kind whereas for the second case we get a
somewhat different sequence which approximates the Bessel function with increasing
accuracy as the number of sinusoids is increased.

Correlation of Real and Imaginary Parts

The above figures show the theoretical Bessel function versus the autocorrelation of the
real/imaginary part generated by method number two. The figure on the left considers 20
sinusoids whereas the figure on the right considers 40 sinusoids. As can be seen the accuracy
of the autocorrelation sequence increases considerably by doubling the number of sinusoids.
We can assume that for number of sinusoids exceeding 100 i.e. N=100 in the above code the
generated autocorrelation sequence would be quite accurate.
[1] Chengshan Xiao, Novel Sum-of-Sinusoids Simulation Models for Rayleigh and Rician
Fading Channels, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL.
5, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2006.
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Noise Calibration in
Simulation of
Communication Systems
October 30, 2014FundamentalsAWGN, Calibration, Noise, PSD, Simulation

We have been using a wireless signal model in our simulations without going into the details
of noise calibration for simulation. In this article we discuss this. Lets assume the received
signal is given as
r(t)=s(t)+n(t)
where r(t) is the received signal s(t) is the transmitted signal and n(t) is the Additive White
Gaussian Noise (AWGN). Channel fading is ignored at the moment. Signal to noise ratio for
simulation of digital communication systems is given as
=Eb/No (1)
Where Eb is the energy per bit and No is the noise Power Spectral Density (PSD). We also
know that for the case of Additive White Gaussian Noise the noise power is given as
[Tranter]
^2=(No/2)*fs
No=2*(^2)/fs

Where is the standard deviation of noise and fs is the sampling frequency. Substituting in
equation 1 we get
=Eb/No=Eb/(2*^2/fs )

Eb/No=(Eb*fs)/(2*^2)
^2=(Eb*fs)/(2*Eb/No )
=((Eb*fs)/(2*Eb/No ))
If the energy per bit and the sampling frequency is set to 1 the above equation reduces to
=(1/(2*Eb/No ))
The simulation software can thus calculate the noise standard deviation (or variance) for each
value of Eb/No in the simulation cycle. The following piece of MATLAB code generates
AWGN with the required power and adds it to the transmitted signal.
s=sign(rand-0.5);

% Generate a symbol

sigma=1/sqrt(2*EbNo);

% Calculate noise standard deviation

n=sigma*randn;

% Generate AWGN with the required std dev

r=s+n;

% Add noise to the signal

How can we assume that energy per bit and sampling frequency is equal to one and are we
breaking some discrete time signal processing rule here. This will be discussed in a later post.
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Modified Youngs Fading

Simulator
October 1, 2014Channel Modeling, Fundamentals, LTEFading, FIR, Rayleigh

In the previous posts we had discussed generation of a correlated Rayleigh fading sequence
using Smiths method [1] and Youngs modification of Smiths method [2]. The main
contribution of Young was that he proposed a mechanism where the number of IDFTs was
reduced by half. This was achieved by first adding two length N IID zero mean Gaussian
sequences filtered by the filter F[k] and then performing the IDFT on the resulting complex
sequence.
This was different to Smiths method where the IDFT was performed simultaneously on two
branches and then the outputs of these branches were added in quadrature to achieve the
desired sequence with Rayleigh distributed envelope and Uniformly distributed phase.
Another problem with Smiths method was that the outputs of the two arms after performing
IDFTs was assumed to be real which is not always the case in implementation and depends
upon the combination of Doppler frequency (fm) and length of Gaussian sequence (N).

Youngs Fading Simulator

Youngs Filter
Youngs technique is shown graphically in the above figure. Also shown is the definition of
filter F[k] which depends upon N, fm and km (please note that the fm in the above equation is
normalized by the sampling frequency fs). Here km = N*(fm/fs). We propose three
modifications to Youngs technique which significantly reduces computation and at the same
time maintains the statistical properties of the generated sequence. The modifications we
propose are.

1. First modification has to do with the generated Gaussian sequence. It is observed that the
filter F[k], at very high sampling rates, is mostly zero and there are very few points which
have some non-zero value. So when we multiply the Gaussian sequence with the filter we
mostly get zeros at the output. So we propose that the filter response in the frequency domain
must be calculated first and the the Gaussian random sequence must be generated for only
those points where the filter F[k] is non-zero e.g. for a sampling frequency of 7.68 MHz
(standard sampling frequency for a BW of 5 MHz in LTE) and Doppler frequency of 70 Hz
(corresponding to medium Doppler case in LTE) the filter F[k] has 99.9982% zeros in its
frequency response and it would be a highly wasteful to calculate Gaussian RVs for all those
values.
2. Secondly according to Clarke [3] the Doppler Spectrum measurements have Marked
disagreement at very low frequencies and at frequencies in the region of the sharp cut-off
associated with the maximum Doppler frequency shift. At very low frequencies the spectral
energy is always observed to be higher than that predicted by theory. He goes on to add
The reason for this is that neither theoretical model takes into account the large scale
variations in total energy which result from the changing topography between transmitter and
mobile receiver. This suggests that the Classical Doppler Spectrum might not be the best
choice under all scenarios. This has also been noted in [4] where a flat fading model is
evaluated in terms of its Level Crossing Rate and Average Fade Duration. Such a flat
spectrum is especially suited to indoor scenarios as noted in [5] and [6].
We propose a filter that gives equal weight to all the frequencies up to the maximum Doppler
frequency. So our filter is a box-type filter which applies a constant scaling factor to all the
frequencies in the pass-band and zeros out all the frequencies in the stop-band. So in fact the
Gaussian sequence that is generated in the in-phase arm may directly be added with the
Gaussian sequence from the other arm without applying the frequency domain filter and then
IDFT of the complex sequence is taken. We will look into the deviation from ideality that
this causes later.
3. The third modification that we propose is in the implementation of the IDFT. Here again
we take into consideration that the complex sequence being fed to the IDFT is filled with
zeros (as we noted earlier 99.9982% zeros for 7.68 MHz and even more for higher
frequencies) so we can avoid a lot multiplications and summations. The IDFT is defined
below and also given is our modification to it.

Further improvement in computation time is achieved by implementing the above as a matrix

multiplication. The matrix multiplication is implemented as H*X where H is the IDFT
coefficients of size N x 2(km+1) and X is a vector of size 2(km+1) x 1 upon which the IDFT
has to be performed.
Now let us look at the output sequence generated by using the above techniques. We consider
the case of Medium Doppler Frequency of 70 Hz (EVA channel) as defined by LTE
specifications. Sampling frequency is fixed at 10 kHz giving a normalized Doppler frequency
of 0.007. This was done due to limitation of memory on the machine. The author also
experimented with a sampling frequency of 7.68 MHz but this did not yield enough samples
for statistically accurate results. We did use a sampling frequency of 7.68 MHz for our bit
error rate simulation which is shown in the end.

Rayleigh
Fading Envelope fm=70Hz

Distribution of
Fading Envelope fm=70Hz
It is observed for fm=70 Hz the envelope of the output sequence using the proposed
technique matches quite well with the envelope of the output sequence generated by the ideal
filter proposed by Young. Also the phase and envelope of the sequence generated using the

proposed technique has the desired distribution. Some of the other metrics that we can look at
are the level crossing rate (LCR) and average fade duration (AFD) as well as the Auto
Correlation of the real and imaginary parts of the complex sequence generated.
Parameter

Young

Modified

LCR (ideal)

48.1086

48.1086

LCR (sim)

48.1506

39.4348

AFD (ideal)

0.0018

0.0018

AFD (sim)

0.0018

0.0022

If we look at the results for LCR and AFD we see that the simulated results match reasonably
well with the results predicted by theory. These results correspond to 100 snapshots of the
fading sequence. It was important to take the average of several snapshots as results varied
with each simulation run. Sometimes Youngs technique produced more accurate results
while at other times the proposed technique was better. Again the limitations of computer
memory and processing power dictated the length of the sequence that could be generated.
In general Youngs technique produced better results than our proposed technique. It was
found that product of LCR and AFD for both cases matched quite well with the theoretical
value. So the total time spent in a fade state per second was equal in both the cases. In the
proposed method the duration of a single fading event was higher, whereas the number of
fading events per second was lower. This can be attributed to the fact that in our proposed
technique higher weighting is given to lower frequency components and the fading sequence
is smoothed out by these low frequency components. One technique to overcome this is
spectral broadening as suggested by [4] but this is not the subject here and we postpone its
discussion to another article.

Auto Correlation of Real Part fm=70Hz

Auto
Correlation of Imaginary Part fm=70Hz
The Auto Correlation of the real and imaginary parts of the generated sequences are also
calculated for a Doppler frequency of 70 Hz. It is found that the Auto Correlation sequence
for the two techniques matches quite well. However, the Auto Correlation sequence deviates
from the theoretical value as calculated the by Bessel function of the first kind and zero order.
Since we have used a flat spectral mask the Auto Correlation function resembles the sinc(x)
function which is the same as zeroth order Spherical Bessel Function of the first kind (which
is related to 1/2 order Bessel Function of the first kind).
It was found that when the Rayleigh fading sequence is generated by the program provided in
Youngs thesis the shape of the Auto Correlation function depends upon the sampling
frequency. At a normalized Doppler frequency of 0.05 and N=2^16 Youngs technique
produces quite accurate results. We also measured the mean squared error (MSE) between the
two Auto Correlations sequences and found it to be a function of the Normalized Doppler
Frequency. It was found that as the Normalized Doppler Frequency was increased from
0.00007 to 0.0007 the MSE error dropped from 0.0277 to 0.0041. The relationship between
the Normalized Doppler Frequency and MSE, for a fixed sequence length, seems to be
resembling an exponential function. For more accurate results, at higher sampling
frequencies, the number of samples would have to be increased considerably. In fact it was
found that if the variable km (km=N*fm/fs) is maintained at around 20 the error between the
two correlation sequences is less than 1% for all possible sampling rates.

MSE of
Autocorrelation Sequence
We also compared the bit error rate (BER) performance of different QAM modulation
schemes using both the techniques for fading envelope generation and found these to be
matching quite well. A single tap was used which results in a flat fading channel. This is a
simplistic channel model but it gives us some confidence that the proposed approach does
have the desired statistical properties. A good test of a temporally correlated Rayleigh fading
sequence is to test it on a system that implements interleavers and channel coders whose
performance strongly depends upon factors such as the LCR and AFD e.g. a certain forward
error correction (FEC) code might work well in high LCR and low AFD as this distributes out
errors in different blocks and allows the code to correct them. In simulations done so far (not
shown here) we have found that for a 1/2 rate convolutional encoder with Hard Viterbi
Decoding the BER for the two schemes matches quite well. In general the results for
correlated fading are much worse than uncorrelated fading.

BER of
QAM fm=70Hz
In future we would also like to evaluate the bit error rate (BER) performance of an M-QAM
OFDM system with Frequency Selective Rayleigh fading as described by the LTE fading
channels EPA, EVA and ETU. This is probably a good scenario to compare the accuracy of
the two techniques used to generate Rayleigh fading sequences above. One challenge in this
regard is that the LTE channel taps are described in increments of 10 nsec whereas the LTE
signal sampling rate is defined on a different scale (minimum Ts=32.5521 nsec corresponding
to a sampling rate of 30.72 Msps). So we would have to do sample rate conversion to
implement a time varying frequency selective Rayleigh fading channel.
[1] John I. Smith, A Computer Generated Multipath Fading Simulation for Mobile Radio,
IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol VT-24, No. 3, August 1975.
[2] David J. Young and Norman C. Beaulieu, The Generation of Correlated Rayleigh
Random Variates by Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform, IEEE Transactions on
Communications vol. 48 no. 7 July 2000.
[3] R. H. Clarke, A Statistical Theory of Mobile Radio Reception, Bell Systems Technical
Journal 47 (6), pp 9571000, July 1968.

[4] Rosmansyah, Y.; Saunders, S.R.; Sweeney, P.; Tafazolli, R., Equivalence of flat and
classical Doppler sample generators, Electronics Letters , vol.37, no.4, pp.243,244, 15 Feb
2001.
[5] JTC (Joint Technical Committee T1 RIP1.4 and TIA TR46.3.3/TR45.4.4 on Wireless
Access): Draft final report on RF channel characterization. Paper no. JTC(AIR)/94.01.17238R4, January 17, 1994.
[6] ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute): Universal mobile
telecommunications system (UMTS); selection procedures for the choice of radio
transmission technologies of the UMTS (UMTS 30.03 version 3.2.0). Technical Report, TR
101 112 V3.2.0 (1998-04), http://www.etsi.org, 1998.

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Theoretical BER of M-QAM

in Rayleigh Fading
June 4, 2014BER Performance, Fundamentals, LTEAnalytical, BER, BIT ERROR
RATE,Modulation, QAM

We have previously discussed the Bit Error Rate of M-QAM in Rayleigh Fading using Monte
Carlo Simulation. We now turn our attention to calculation of Bit Error Rate (BER) of MQAM in Rayleigh fading using analytical techniques. In particular we look at the method
used in MATLAB function berfading.m. In this function the BER of 4-QAM, 16-QAM and
64-QAM is calculated from series expressions having 1, 3 and 5 terms respectively. These are
given below (M is the constellation size and must be a power of 2).
if (M == 4)
ber = 1/2 * ( 1 - sqrt(gamma_c/k./(1+gamma_c/k)) );
elseif (M == 16)
ber = 3/8 * ( 1 - sqrt(2/5*gamma_c/k./(1+2/5*gamma_c/k)) ) ...
+ 1/4 * ( 1 - sqrt(18/5*gamma_c/k./(1+18/5*gamma_c/k)) ) ...
- 1/8 * ( 1 - sqrt(10*gamma_c/k./(1+10*gamma_c/k)) );
elseif (M == 64)
ber = 7/24 * ( 1 - sqrt(1/7*gamma_c/k./(1+1/7*gamma_c/k)) ) ...
+ 1/4 * ( 1 - sqrt(9/7*gamma_c/k./(1+9/7*gamma_c/k)) ) ...

- 1/24 * ( 1 - sqrt(25/7*gamma_c/k./(1+25/7*gamma_c/k)) ) ...

+ 1/24 * ( 1 - sqrt(81/7*gamma_c/k./(1+81/7*gamma_c/k)) ) ...
- 1/24 * ( 1 - sqrt(169/7*gamma_c/k./(1+169/7*gamma_c/k)) );

Although using these expressions we get very accurate BER but it is not that simple to
calculate (the expressions become even more complicated for higher constellation sizes such
as 256-QAM). Therefore we try to simplify these expressions by using only the first term in
each expression. To our surprise the results match quite well with the results using the exact
formulae. There is very minor difference at low signal to noise ratios but that can be easily
bargained for the ease of calculation.

So here is our program for calculating the BER using the approximate method.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%
% FUNCTION TO CALCULATE THE BER OF M-QAM IN RAYLEIGH FADING
% M: Input, Constellation Size
% EbNo: Input, Energy Per Bit to Noise Power Spectral Density
% ber: Output, Bit Error Rate
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%
function [ber]= BER_QAM_fading (M, EbNo)

k=log2(M);
EbNoLin=10.^(EbNo/10);
gamma_c=EbNoLin*k;

if M==4
%4-QAM
ber = 1/2 * ( 1 - sqrt(gamma_c/k./(1+gamma_c/k)) );
elseif M==16
%16-QAM
ber = 3/8 * ( 1 - sqrt(2/5*gamma_c/k./(1+2/5*gamma_c/k)) );
elseif M==64
%64-QAM
ber = 7/24 * ( 1 - sqrt(1/7*gamma_c/k./(1+1/7*gamma_c/k)) );
else
%Warning
warning('M=4,16,64')
ber=zeros(1,length(EbNo));
end

semilogy(EbNo,ber,'o-')
xlabel('EbNo(dB)')
ylabel('BER')
axis([0 24 0.001 1])
grid on

return

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%

So we see that the results match quite well with the results previously obtained through
simulation. We will next tackle the problem of simplifying the expression for higher order
modulations such as 256-QAM in both Rayleigh and Ricean channels.
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Sizing Up a Solar System for

a Cellular Base Station
July 26, 2013Fundamentals, LTE, Solar Energy, WiMAXBase Station, Photo Voltaic,Power, PV, Solar
Energy

Many operators are thinking of moving from the main grid to alternative energy sources such
as wind and solar. This is especially true in third world countries where electricity is not
available 24/7 and is also very expensive. This has forced operators to switch their base
stations to diesel generators (which is also a costly option).
In this article we do a rough estimation of the size a solar system required to run a cellular
base station. We start with the assumption that 20 Watts of power are transmitted from a
single antenna of base station. For a 3 sector site there are 3 antennas giving us total

transmitted power of 60 Watts. Now if 50% of the power is lost in cables and connections we
would have to boost up the transmitted power to 120 Watts.
We know that power amplifiers are highly in-efficient (depending upon the load) and a large
amount of power is lost in this stage. So we assume an efficiency of 12 % giving us a total
input power of 1000 Watts. Another 500 Watts are given to Air Conditioning (200 W), Signal
Processing (150 W) and Rectifier (150 W). So the combined AC input to the base station is
1500 Watts. Now we turn our attention to sizing up the solar system.

If we assume that the BS is continuously consuming 1500 Watts over a 24 hour period we
have a total energy consumption of 36 kWh. If the solar panels receive peak sun hours of 5
hours/day we would require solar panels rated at 7200 Watts. This could mean 72 solar panels
of 100 Watts each or 36 solar panels of 200 Watts each or any other combination. It must be
noted that we have not considered any margins for cloudy days when peak sun hours would
be reduced. Also, we have not considered any reduction in power consumption when there is
no load (or very less load) on the BS.
Next we calculate the amount of batteries required. We assume that the batteries are rated at
200 AH and 12 V. This gives us a total energy storage capacity per battery of 2.4 kWh. So the
number of batteries required is calculated as 36 kWh/2.4 kWh = 15. It must be noted that
some of the energy would be consumed in real-time and the actual number of batteries
required would be lesser. Furthermore we would need an inverter of at least 1500 Watts and
charge controller of 125 Amps.

Leave a comment

Calculate Solar Panel Tilt

June 11, 2013Fundamentals, Solar EnergyPV, Solar, Solar Panel, Summer, Sun, Tilt,Winter

1. Find the direction of magnetic North and consequently magnetic South.

2. Adjust for magnetic declination to find exact true South.
3. Point solar panels towards true South.
4. Find optimum tilt angle based on the latitude and the season.
Enter the value of latitude below to find the panel tilt in degrees.

Winter

Latitude
*

+
0.89

= Degrees
24

Spring and Fall

Latitude
*

0.98

= Degrees
2.3

Summer

Latitude
*

0.92

= Degrees
24.3

Note:
1. The result above is the angle in degrees from the horizontal.
2. If you do not know the latitude of your city you can look it up here.

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How to Calculate the

Surface Area Required by
Solar Panels
May 27, 2013Fundamentals, Solar EnergyArea, Efficiency, EM Wave, Irradiance, Solar,Solar Panel

You have estimated the size of the solar system that you need and are ready to get the
equipment from the market to install it. But wait, are you sure you have enough space in your
garden or your backyard or your rooftop to install the solar panels? How can you do a rough
estimate of the area required by the solar panels? Here is a quick and easy way to go about it.
Lets assume that you want to install 10 solar panels rated at 100 Watts each and having a
conversion efficiency of 18%. The total power output of the solar system can be calculated
as:
Total Power Output=Total Area x Solar Irradiance x Conversion Efficiency
We know the required Total Output Power is 1000 Watts (10 panels x 100 Watts), the Solar
Irradiance for a surface perpendicular to the Suns rays at sea level on a clear day is about
1000 Watt/m2 and the Conversion Efficiency is 18%. Plugging these number in the above
equation we get:
1000 Watts = Total Area x 1000 Watts/m2 x 0.18
or
Total Area = 5.56 m2
I you are going to install all the panels in one line you would need a space of approximately 1
m x 5.56 m (each panel having a size of 1 m x 0.556 m) on your rooftop. There you go. You
have a rough estimate of the space required by the solar panels of your system.
Note:
1. Do remember that solar panels are usually installed at an angle to the earth surface and this
may change the results somewhat.
2. Imagine a solar panel has a conversion efficiency of 100% i.e. it converts all the solar
energy into electrical energy then all you would need is a 1 m 2 solar panel to produce 1000
Watts of electrical energy.
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Does Shannon Capacity

Increase by Dividing a
Frequency Band into
Narrow Bins
April 9, 2013Capacity, Fundamentals, LTE4G, LTE, OFDM, Shannon Capacity, SNR

Somebody recently asked me this question Does Shannon Capacity Increase by Dividing a
Frequency Band into Narrow Bins. To be honest I was momentarily confused and thought
that this may be the case since many of the modern Digital Communication Systems do use
narrow frequency bins e.g. LTE. But on closer inspection I found that the Shannon Capacity
does not change, in fact it remains exactly the same. Following is the reasoning for that.
Shannon Capacity is calculated as:
C=B*log2(1+SNR)
or
C=B*log2(1+P/(B*No))
Now if the bandwidth B is divided into 10 equal blocks then the transmit power P for each
block would also be divided by 10 to keep the total transmit power for the entire band to be
constant. This means that the factor P/(B*No) remains constant. So the total capacity for the
10 blocks would be calculated as:
C=10*(B/10)*log2(1+P/(B*No))
So the Shannon Capacity for the entire band remains the same.
PS: The reason for the narrower channels is that for a narrow channel the channel appears
relatively flat in the frequency domain and the process of equilization is thus simplified (a
simple multiplication/division would do).
Note: No is the Noise Power Spectral Density and B*No is the Noise Power.
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Uniform, Gaussian and

Rayleigh Distribution
June 26, 2012Channel Modeling, FundamentalsChannel, Fading, Multipath, Rayleigh Fading

It is sometimes important to know the relationship between various distributions. This can be
useful if there is a function available for one distribution and it can be used to derive other
distributions. In the context of Wireless Communications it is important to know the
relationship between the Uniform, Gaussian and Rayleigh distribution.
According to Central Limit Theorem the sum of a large number of independent and
identically distributed random variables has a Gaussian distribution. This is used to model the
amplitude of the in-phase and quadrature components of a wireless signal. Shown below is
the model for the received signal which has been modulated by the Gaussian channel
coefficients g1 and g2.
r=g1*a1*cos(2*pi*fc*t)+g2*a2*sin(2*pi*fc*t)
The envelope of this signal (sqrt(g1^2+g2^2)) as a Rayleigh distribution. Now if you only
had a function for Uniform Distribution you can generate Rayleigh Distribution using the
following routine.
clear all
close all
M=10000;
N=100;

for n=1:M;
x1=rand(1,N)-0.5;
x2=rand(1,N)-0.5;

y1=mean(x1);
y2=mean(x2);

z(n)=sqrt(y1^2+y2^2);

end

hist(z,20)

Note: Here a1 and a2 can be considered constants (at least during the symbol duration) and its
really g1 and g2 that are varying.
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