Wireless channel and interference

This chapter focuses on various critical aspects of wireless channel starting with explanation of the dominant propagation phenomena and their resultant effects on the system. It then touches upon mechanisms employed for empirical measurement of these channel effects, as well as techniques commonly used to represent them in a way that is useful for system design (i.e. channel modeling). The features of interference caused by wireless channel are grouped considering the fading characteristics of the medium, such as large-scale and small-scale fading. In order to enable the control of wireless environment, several approaches have been proposed and discussed in the literature. The chapter also focuses on two promising techniques: reconfigurable antenna and reconfigurable intelligent surface. Finally, it explains basic channel emulation techniques which are used to reproduce various propagation effects in the laboratory environment for system testing.