Peter B. Papazian and John J. Lemmon

Abstract: This paper describes radio channel sounding measurements and analysis using pseudo-noise (PN) codes. It presents a channel sounding model and shows how channel measurements can be made. A measurement system is described that can be implemented using a combination of radio frequency (RF) hardware, high speed analog to digital converters (ADC), and signal processing software. Sampling requirements and models for describing the stochastic nature of the radio channel are discussed. Typical signal outputs of a PN channel sounder from the laboratory and from field measurements are shown. The field measurements are used to show how channel sounding data can be processed to develop a power law model of short-range communications. This model can be used for a statistical estimation of received power and interference analysis.

Keywords: impulse response; multipath; RF; propagation; channel model; channel sounding

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