Complete Shadowing Modeling and its Effect on System Level Performance Evaluation

Computer simulations are a common procedure for assessing the performance of new algorithms. To conduct a valid and accurate study, the models employed in such simulators need to be carefully selected. Regarding shadowing modeling, one-dimensional models are fairly commonplace in the literature. While simple and with low computational costs, these models can not produce correlated fading values for mobiles that are in nearby positions and, besides, do not include the cross-correlation effect. To overcome these limitations, this paper presents a bi-dimensional shadowing model which introduces both the spatial correlation and the cross-correlation present in real systems. Finally, the impact of considering different aspects of shadowing modeling for system level investigations is evaluated. For that purpose, the UMTS radio access technology has been considered as a case study.