ECE-T512 – Wireless

Systems
Interference/Noise
 Interference/Noise
• Interference is the major limiting factor in cellular radio
performance – particularly urban networks
– Voice channels – Cross-talk and diminished call quality
– Control channels – Missed/blocked calls
• Co-channel interference (CCI) is introduced when same
carrier frequency is used in different cells.
• Adjacent channel interference (ACI) occurs when
neighboring cells use spectrally adjacent carrier
frequencies that “spill-over” into the band of interest –
occurs due to imperfect receive filters / image frequency
rejection
 Interference/Noise

= Carrier to noise ratio
 = Carrier to interference ratio
Thresholds must be exceeded to prevent
outage:
– Thermal noise outage = ON = P(
<
TH)
– CCI outage = OI = P( < TH)
 Interference/Noise Thresholds

TH and TH depend on:
• Modulation/coding scheme
• Receiver structure
• Link quality measure
• Propagation environment
• Mobile velocity
 Outage Probability
O = Outage Probability = P(
<
TH or  < TH)
General trends:
• Fast mobile users  Path loss/Shadowing
dominant in outage probability calculations
• Slow mobile users  Multipath Fading
dominant in outage probability calculations
• Lightly loaded systems  Noise dominant
• Highly loaded systems  Interference dominant
 Interference and Cellular
System Capacity
Co-channel cells - cells in a given coverage area that use
the same set of frequencies --- interference between
signals from these cells is CCI
Thermal noise can be overcome by increasing carrier
power -- SNR increased
CCI cannot be combated in this way - increasing carrier
power also increases interference power seen by co-
channel cells
Reducing CCI can be accomplished through physical
separation of co-channel cells, specifically, by
increasing:
Q = D/R = sqrt(3N)
– N = cluster size
– D = co-channel re-use distance
– R = cell radius