An efficient time-discrete symbol-spaced simulation model for mobile radio channels

We propose a fully parametric, time-discrete, symbol-spaced simulation model of frequency-selective mobile radio channels. The model encapsulates transmission and receiver filters and a physical channel accounting for both Rayleigh and Rice fading. The simulator allows one to accurately trade between complexity and quality of representation of the propagation channel, making use of a digital filter of variable order to implement the Doppler spectrum of the fading processes. Numerical results assessing the performance of the model in terms of the simulation time and the power spectrum of the fading processes are provided. A communication system with an adaptive receiver is employed to test the reliability of the propagation model. Increasing the degree of accuracy in the approximation of the Doppler spectrum, the performance of the considered receiver, expressed in terms of symbol error rate, rapidly converges to a specific function of the signal to noise ratio.