Buildings in high-speed mobile communication systems

Wide-band digital indoor and future mobile communication systems are being developed in the quasi-millimeter and millimeter wave frequency bands. In such high-speed systems, the degradation of transmission quality by multipath fading constitutes a limiting barrier. Multipath fading, which results from reflection, refraction and scattering of radio waves by buildings and other structures, gives rise to more than one path reaching the receiver and produces a distorted version of the transmitted signal. In mobile and indoor communication systems it cannot be eliminated, therefore the multipath channel must be well characterized in order to reduce its effect in the design of such systems. The objective of this research is to study the multipath fading and delay spread effects due to buildings in an urban propagation channel. In particular, the effects of the building materials, shapes and number of buildings on multipath fading are being studied.