Mathematical

Models for
Communication
Channels

Engr Cristian S. Lazana, ECE

What is a model?
 Mathematical models are representations of
the most important characteristics of a system,
such as a transmission medium.
 A mathematical model of a communication
channel can be used in the design of the
channel encoder/decoder and modulator
demodulator, and channel encoder/decoder.
Additive Noise Channel Model
 It is the simplest and predominant communications
channel model because it can be applied to a
broad class of communications model and
because of its mathematical manipulability.
 In this model, noise n(t) corrupts the transmission
signal s(t).
 This model is also known as Additive Gaussian Noise
Process because thermal noise is statistically a
Gaussian Process.
 If channel attenuation is considered, an attenuation
factor alpha is added, r(t) = αs(t) + n(t).
Additive Noise Channel
Linear Filter Channel
 This model is used when filters are used to
ensure that the transmitted signals do not
exceed the specified bandwidth in order to
avoid interference from adjacent channels.
 This type of channel is characterized
mathematically as linear filter with additive
noise such that
∞
𝑟 𝑡 = න 𝑐 𝜏 𝑠 𝑡 − 𝜏 𝑑𝜏 + 𝑛(𝑡)
−∞
Linear Filter Channel
Linear Time-Variant Filter Channel
 Thismodel is used to model physical channels
characterized by its time-variant multipath
propagation such as underwater acoustic
channels and ionospheric radio channels.
 Mathematically, it can be characterized as a
time-variant channel impulse response c(τ;t),
where τ represents elapsed time or age.
∞
𝑟 𝑡 = න 𝑐 𝜏; 𝑡 𝑠 𝑡 − 𝜏 𝑑𝜏 + 𝑛(𝑡)
−∞
Linear Time-Variant Filter Channel
Multipath Propagation
 Multipath propagation at frequencies above 30
MHz, has the form
𝐿

𝑟 𝑡 = ෍ 𝑎𝑘 𝑡 𝑠 𝑡 − 𝜏𝑘 + 𝑛(𝑡)
𝑘=1
This means that the received signal came from L
numbers of multipath; whereas, each component
is attenuated 𝑎𝑘 𝑡 and delayed by 𝜏𝑘 .