Coverage study for broadband wireless systems using link adaptation and diversity combining techniques

A broadband wireless access system is a bi-directional broadband wireless system to fixed networks at millimeter-wave frequencies. The propagation environment at millimeter-wave frequencies is one of the major challenges in delivering broadband services to fixed subscribers. At such high frequencies the signal is attenuated by the obstacles in the radio path between the subscriber and the hub, such as buildings, trees and vehicles in the radio path between the subscriber and the hub.Link adaptation techniques such as adaptive modulation and error control coding have been applied to wireless communication systems to overcome the multipath fading experienced by the transmitted signal. Diversity has long been recognized as an effective technique for combating the effect of channel multipath fading. In this study, we investigate the outage probability improvements due to the employments of various combinations of adaptive modulation, adaptive coding, and diversity techniques in a broadband wireless access system. The results indicate that using adaptive modulation, coding, and maximal ratio combining (MRC) yields significant enhancements in outage probability of the system.