Modelling and simulation of the propagation characteristics of the 900 MHz narrowband-TDMA CEPT/GSM mobile radio

The authors examine the problem of modelling and simulating the propagation characteristics for the pan-European digital mobile radio system, as specified by CEPT/GSM (Conference Europe des Postes et des Telecommunications/Group Special Mobiles). The modelling problem is solved by means of the time- and frequency-dependent linear filter (TFLF) identified by its transfer functions and representative of the short-term random propagation processes. Starting from such a TFLF and from the power delay profiles specified by CEPT/GSM, the simulation model provides independent realizations of the mobile radio channel transfer function. Particular attention is also devoted to the model calibration. Finally, an example of performance analysis is shown, considering a typical communication channel of the CEPT/GSM system using a reduced-complexity Viterbi adaptive equalizer, based on a modified Viterbi algorithm, and with timing and carrier phase recovery and channel impulse response estimation performed by utilizing the 26-bit `midamble´ sequence foreseen by the TDMA (time-division multiple-access) channel burst format