Lecture 4

Satellite & Mobile

Communications
Frequency Reuse - II

Dr. Tarik KHALEEL

Propagation path loss
• The propagation path loss of a signal is a function of several factors, such as
environment, location, antenna type, antenna height, and so on.
• By considering omnidirectional antennas, the propagation path loss in a
mobile radio environment is normally taken as 40 dB per decade, that is, the
signal will suffer a 40 dB loss for each 10 km. The difference in power
reception at two different distances d1 and d2 would be:

• where Pr1 is the received carrier power at receiver 1, Pr2 is the received carrier power at
receiver 2, d1 is the distance measured from the transmitter to receiver 1, and d2 is the
distance measured from the transmitter to receiver 2.

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Propagation path loss
• When expressed in decibels, previous Equation becomes:

Example
• Calculate the change in received signal powers (in decibels) in mobile radio propagation
condition at two different distance points when the second distance point is twice the
distance of the first point.

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Propagation path loss
• Solution

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Frequency reuse factor
• The co-channel interference needs to be minimized.
• For example, to guarantee an appropriate speech quality, the carrier-to-interference
power-ratio (CIR) has to exceed a certain threshold CIR min which is 9 dB for the GSM
system.
• Unlike thermal noise which can be overcome by increasing the signal-to-noise ratio
(SNR), co-channel interference cannot be overcome by simply increasing the carrier
power because an increase in carrier power increases the interference to neighbouring
co-channel cells.
• To reduce co-channel interference, co-channel cells must be physically separated by a
minimum distance.
• Therefore, minimization of co-channel interference requires a minimum co-channel
distance; that is, the distance cannot be smaller than this minimum distance.

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Frequency reuse factor
• In a cellular system of equal cell
size, the co-channel interference
is a function of a frequency reuse
factor or co-channel reuse ratio
(q).
• The frequency reuse factor of a
cellular system is defined by the
ratio of distance between the
frequency reusing cell sites (D)
and the cell radius (R) of the
serving cell sites and is known
as D/R ratio
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Relationship between frequency reuse factor (D/R) and cluster size (N)
• (i) finding the relation between the distance D (two co-channel cells)and R and
• (ii) locating the co-channel cells.
• The relation between distance (D) (two co-channel cells) and R in a hexagonal
geometry, the actual centre-to-centre distance between two adjacent hexagonal cells is

• where R is the centre-to-vertex distance.

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Relationship between frequency reuse factor (D/R) and cluster size (N)

• From the Figure, we can observe that OA = R, AB = R/2 and OAP is a right-angled
triangle. In the OAP triangle,
• Let d be the centre-to-centre (OQ) distance between two adjacent hexagonal cells 1
and 2, then

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 Method of locating co-channel cells
• To locate the nearest co-channel cells, mark
the centre of cell as (0,0) for which co-
channel cells are required to be located.
• The nearest co-channel cell in a hexagonal
cellular structure to the cell under
consideration can be located using shifting
parameters (i, j).
• The two parameters i and j measure the
number of nearest neighbouring cells
between co-channel cells in a hexagonal
geometry, where i and j are separated by 60°
as shown in Figure.

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 Method of locating co-channel cells
The important steps to be
followed now are as follows:
• Move i number of cells along
any chain of hexagons.
• Turn 60° counter clockwise
and move j number of cells
along the chain that lies in this
new heading.

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 Summary

1 As seen from Equation

C = M ×k ×N = M ×S
the capacity of a cellular system is directly proportional to the number of
times a cluster is replicated in a fixed service area.
The factor N is called the cluster size and is typically equal to 4, 7, or 12.

2 If the cluster size N is reduced while the cell size is kept constant,
more clusters are required to cover a given area, and hence more capacity (a
larger value of C) is achieved.

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Summary
3. A larger cluster size causes the ratio between the cell radius and the
distance between co-channel cells to decrease, leading to weaker co-
channel interference. Conversely, a small cluster size indicates that co-
channel cells are located much closer together.

4. The value for N is a function of how much interference a mobile or

base station can tolerate while maintaining a sufficient quality of
communications. From a design viewpoint, the smallest possible value
of N is desirable in order to maximize capacity over a given coverage
area (i.e., to maximize C in Equation .2). 12
Summary

5- The frequency reuse factor of a cellular system is given by 1/N, since each cell
within a cluster is only assigned 1/N of the total available channels in the system.
6- Due to the fact that the hexagonal geometry of Figure 3.1 has exactly six
equidistant neighbors and that the lines joining the centers of any cell and each of its
neighbors are separated by multiples of 60 degrees, there are only certain cluster
sizes and cell layouts which are possible [Mac79]. In order to tessellate to connect
without gaps between adjacent cells the geometry of hexagons is such that the
number of cells per cluster, N, can only have values which satisfy Equation:
N = i2 + ij+j2
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Example

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Example – Solution

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Example – Solution

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Example – Solution

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H.W.

Q2: (a) Assume a cellular system of 32 cells with a cell radius of 1.6 km, a total
spectrum allocation that supports 336 traffic channels, and a reuse pattern of 7.
Calculate the total service area covered with this configuration, the number of channels
per cell, and a total system capacity. Assume regular hexagonal cellular topology.
(b) Let the cell size be reduced to the extent that the same area as covered in Part (a)
with 128 cells. Find the radius of the new cell, and new system capacity.
Comment on the results obtained.
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H.W.
Q3:A mobile communication system is allocated RF spectrum of 25 MHz and uses RF
channel bandwidth of 25 kHz so that a total number of 1000 voice channels can be
supported in the system.
(a) If the service area is divided into 20 cells with a frequency reuse factor of 4,
compute the system capacity.
(b) The cell size is reduced to the extent that the service area is now covered with 100
cells. Compute the system capacity while keeping the frequency reuse factor as 4.
(c) Consider the cell size is further reduced so that the same service area is now covered
with 700 cells with the frequency reuse factor of 7. Compute the system capacity.
Comment on the results obtained.

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The End

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