Theoretical multipath channel model during rain for BFWA employed in dense urban areas

In this paper we investigate multipath propagation during rain for broadband fixed wireless access (BFWA) employed in dense urban areas. The geometrical based single bounce elliptical (GBSBE) channel model was used to estimate channel parameters such as power, delay, angle of departure (AOD) and angle of arrival (AOA) of each multipath component. Depending on the spatial variability of rain, the channel parameters were used to calculate the spatial correlation between multipath components. By combing the spatial and temporal correlation of rain attenuation, a theoretical model for simulating correlated multipath taps during rain was developed. Furthermore, simulations were performed to characterize the effect of multipath propagation during rain and the role of user terminal (UT) antenna on system performance. The results show that system outage probability decreases with decreasing UT antenna beamwidth. Especially, rapid variation of the outage probability was observed for antenna beamwidths between 1 - 5 degrees. Generally, depending on the climatologic features of a given location, the new theoretical model can be used for simulating different capacity enhancing techniques during rain such as space-time coding, adaptive equalization for BFWA in dense urban areas.