Analysis, simulation and modeling of mobile Rayleigh fading channel using LabVIEW

The term fading, in the context of mobile communications, refers to the interference caused by the reception of numerous scattered copies of a given signal at an antenna. Fading can produce significant random variations of signal power - in the scale of 10s of dBs over fractions of a wavelength- and hence, can be extremely destructive to the signal. Therefore, in order to achieve reliable mobile communications, provisions must be considered to counter the effects of fading. Indeed, a first step towards this end is to understand these effects through producing models of and simulating this phenomenon. An approximation method is applied to simulate a mobile radio fading channel using Matlab and LabVIEW environment, based on a somewhat simplified mathematical model. Clearly the simplified model might not present a very realistic view of the highly complex and random nature of fading; nevertheless, this simulation serves as an extremely useful research tool for comparing and measuring the effectiveness of different communication techniques.