Dependence of radio channel characteristics on terrain variability in hilly/mountainous regions

This paper investigates how the temporal response and spatial fading statistics for mobile-to-mobile links in hilly and mountainous terrain depend on terrain variations. Fading statistics are generated from Monte Carlo simulations using several terrain databases. These simulations employ a computer code that accounts for diffraction over terrain obstacles and for non-specular scattering from terrain elements. Based on the simulations, we have developed path loss, slow fading, and tapped delay line models for use in the evaluation of communication systems.