A BER analysis for a candidate satcom channel model for the UMTS

This paper is concerned with the performance analysis of UMTS in terms of probability of bit error for DPSK/NCFSK modulation schemes. A wideband channel model is considered with the tapped-delay line structure, random number of taps and randomly varying tap delays. The received signal contains three components, direct path, near echoes, and far echoes. Each component is modelled by different statistics. The direct path is modelled by combining clear Rice and Rayleigh/lognormal statistics, while the near and far echoes are considered to be Rayleigh distributed. For simplicity, the effect of near and far echoes are taken into account by their average power levels rather than by their instantaneous power levels. Effects of shadowing, time factor, and elevation angle are considered. The influence of near and far echoes is considered in different elevation environments.