The impact of system bandwidth on a frequency hopped channel

Studies of code division multiple access (CDMA) have shown that frequency hopping (FH) possesses many of the advantages claimed by direct sequence (DS) spread spectrum techniques. The paper investigates the propagation issues associated with a FH system. To maximise the effectiveness of coding and interleaving in the system requires uncorrelated fading between adjacent hop periods. The criteria which the paper explores therefore include the effects of varying hop frequency bin separation as compared with the coherence bandwidth of the channel. The paper considers the propagation characterisation of a narrowband FH signal, with measurements taken in the City of Bristol. These measurements are used to determine how the overall performance of a FH system is affected by certain critical system parameters, namely hop bin separation and hop rate