Measurements and modelisation of shadowing cross-correlations between two base-stations

Propagation measurements (performed at 900 MHz in a small cell urban environment) and simulations devoted to shadow fading analysis in a diversity context are presented. This work gives a more accurate understanding of the cross-correlation phenomena. It emerges that the cross-correlation coefficients may be quite high when the two stations see the mobile with the same azimuthal angle. In return, a complete decorrelation is often guaranteed when the mobile is between the two stations. The tables derived can be used either to pursue studies about macro-diversity or to investigate further the C/I statistical properties. The realistic model proposed is also of particularly interest in evaluating the performance of handover algorithms and in estimating the macro-diversity gain. For both cases, we present a model of the shadow fading processes, taking into account their different correlation characteristics. We apply this model to perform some simulations