Achievable Rate Evaluation of In-Building Distributed Antenna Systems

Over the last few years high data rate wireless transmission has gained considerable attention in hot spot areas, including high buildings. It has been demonstrated that distributed antenna systems (DASs) improve the performance of the indoor environment by covering dead spots. In this paper, the achievable rate is investigated for indoor high data rate wireless transmission in high buildings when DASs are employed. In the system, radio transmission/reception within one or several neighbouring floors is controlled by one central unit (CU) exploiting the entire system bandwidth. In order to efficiently use the spectrum, the same frequency channels are reused among floors controlled by different CUs. The radio signals in high buildings can propagate vertically and reach the neighbouring floors. Therefore, the performance of the system is limited by cochannel interference. Direct propagation inside the building and reflection from nearby buildings are considered in the channel model. The achievable rate of the system is evaluated through analysis and simulation. The impact of representative system parameters on the achievable rate, including the number of remote antenna units (RAUs), the frequency reuse factor, the floor penetration loss, the path loss exponent, and the Nakagami fading parameter, is discussed.