Reliability of line-of-sight radio-relay systems

Introduction
The modern radio transmission systems are specifically designed for catching
principally two main objectives: on one side to provide a radio solution for long
distance where large configurations are required to fulfill the high capacity
transmissions needs, on the other side to guarantee link quality as high as possible.
The availability of a radio-relay system is dependent upon many factors and
particularly upon: the reliability of equipment and propagation conditions. The article
describes the wave propagation and equipment that determine the performance of
a radio-relay path. National Institute of Telecommunications (NIT) carried out
research on propagation phenomena on terrestrial path and exemplary results are
described herewith. The availability of radio equipment based on the mean time
between failures for equipment modules is presented too.
Time operation of radio links is split into two periods, when it is in working order
or out of order. Radio links are out of order when even one of its basic parameters
is crossing permissible limit spread. This occurrence is called failure. It is not
essential the failure to follow rapidly or gradually. The total unavailability of radio path
is the sum of the probability of hardware failure and unavailability due to propagation
conditions.
There are six transmission parameters, which may be used to characterize of
unsatisfactory quality performance. These are bit error ratio (BER) or frame error
rate (FER), short interruption, delay, jitter, slip and quantizing noise. The ratio
BER/FER and short interruption are the main indicators of unavailability. This is
because jitter and slip will cause bit errors and short interruption in the network and
that delay and quantizing noise are relatively fixed quantities in any connection.
Line-of-sight radio-relay systems are defined unavailable when one or both of
the following conditions occur for more than 10 consecutive seconds:
– the digital signal is interrupted,
– the BER in each second is worse than 10^3
It should be noted that the unavailability for system has to be considered for
both “the go” and “the return” direction, that is twice the calculated value.

Link availability (reliability)

Many fixed broadband wireless links are designed to be available essentially
at all times. Available A means that BER or FER is at or below a given quality
threshold level:
total usage time – downtime
 Conversely, an outage is the time when the link is not available. An outage of
only 53 mines a year is an availability of 99.99%. The availability percentage is
usually based on an annual average although link outage due to fades is normally
calculated on a worst month basis.
The annual outage time is simply related to percentage availability by:
outage time. percent availability
An outage can occur for a variety of reasons, including multipath fades, rain
fades, diffraction fades and equipment failures. Calculating the probability that fades
of a particular magnitude occur, or equipment failures occur, will lead directly to the
probability of an outage and hence the link availability probability.
Causes of unavailability
The availability of a radio-relay system is dependent upon many factors and
particularly upon: the maintenance organization (which determines the time to
restore), the reliability of equipment’s and the system design and propagation
conditions. The relative importance of these various factors may vary significantly,
sometimes without possibility of control, from one area to another. System planners
should take into account all causes of interruption or quality degradation affecting
system unavailability. Features of the major causes of unavailability in radio-relay
systems are described below.
Equipment. Estimate of unavailability should include all causes which are
statistically predictable, unintentional and resulting from the radio equipment. Such
causes can be as follows:
– failure or degradation of radio equipment including modulators and
demodulators,
– failure of auxiliary equipment such as switch-over equipment,
– failure of radio system power supply equipment,
– failure of antenna or feeder.
Propagation. System interruptions due to deep multipath fading often recover
within 10 s, however, they sometimes occur for more than 10 s causing
unavailability. Excessive precipitation-attenuation due to heavy rainfall or snow fall
lasts for a fairly long time and causes unavailability in systems operating in the
frequency bands above 10 GHz. Fading due to layering of the atmosphere is the
dominating factor of degradation of radio-relays in the frequency bands below 8 GHz.
It may be possible to derive prediction statistics on propagation effects by applying
the formulae or methods given in [4] and [5]. Also, since there is generally a low
probability of heavy precipitation occurring, the unavailability time it causes may
differ from year to year.
 Diffraction fades. When there are two radio antennas located on or near the
Earth’s surface propagation can ordinarily occur between them by groundwave. If an
obstruction, a hill, a mountain, a building intervenes, propagation can still occur via
slant paths over the top edge of the obstruction. This depends on diffraction over the
edge. There is an additional loss due to diffraction. For zero diffraction loss the direct
line of sight path between transmitter and receiver must clear the obstruction by
several wavelengths. When the direct path just grazes the obstruction diffraction loss
is exactly 6 dB.
Other causes. Unpredictable noise bursts due to interference mainly from
sources outside the interfered with system may cause unavailability when the noise
power exceeds a certain threshold. This kind of interruption includes interference
from space systems or radar systems associated with anomalous propagation.
Human intervention during maintenance activities can also cause unavailability.
Propagation affects error performance and availability objectives
Fading due to condition of the atmosphere is the dominating factor of
degradation of radio-relays. Fading (being random variable) can cross threshold only
in specific period of time. Fading events are mainly caused by multipath in range of
frequency below 8 GHz and by precipitation in range above 20 GHz. Definition
probability of appearance those events are great of importance on reliability of line-
of-sight radio-relay systems. Transmission of microwave signals above 10 GHz is
vulnerable to precipitation. The attenuation due to absorption is larger than
attenuation due to scatter for wavelengths that are until compared with the drop size.
For wavelengths that are short compared to drop size, the attenuation due to scatter
is larger than due to absorption. Multipath fadings are especially dangerous in high
capacity systems, where signal spectrum occupied comparative frequency wide
band. Formulas mathematical describing these phenomena are given in [4] and [5].
Meteorological conditions in the space separating the transmitter and the receiver
may sometimes cause detrimental effects to the received signal. Rays that normally
would have been lost in troposphere may be refracted into the receiving antenna
where they are added to the wanted signal. The phase- and amplitude-relationship
between signals determines the resultant input signal at the receiver. Multipath
fadings triggering off deep notch in transfer function of radio links cause the
increasing BER because of that:
– decreasing signal to noise ratio,
– decreasing signal to interference ratio,
– decreasing separation between two orthogonal components I and Q.
The prevision of attenuation which may arise in the radio link channels are due
to multipath and atmospheric precipitation demanding knowledge of either the
probability distribution of precipitation intensity or of the probability distribution
condition propagation along the determined routes. Taking into consideration the
nature and the necessity of research on propagation effects occurring in radio links,
detailed instructions and requirements, which should be met to prepare self-
operating measuring position, have been described in [2, 5]. Furthermore such
position has been produced and set-up to work with radio links receivers. The radio
links have been developed to test propagation in band X, Ka and Q. This paper
describes the example tests results of wave attenuation in above mentioned radio
links.
Image…..
Fig. 1. The average worst month and the worst month attenuation distributions
in 5-year period in comparison with the average annual distribution for 6 GHz and
52.3 km route.
For example, Fig. 1 shows the average worst month and the worst month
attenuation distributions in 5 year-period in comparison with the average annual
distribution for 52.3 km route. At the National Institute of Telecommunication (NIT) it
has been researched into precipitation fading on line-of-sight radio links too.
For example, Fig. 2 shows 18.6 GHz frequency and 15.4 km route in 2-year
period.
Image….
Fig. 2. The average worst month and the worst month attenuation distributions
in 2-year period in comparison with the average annual distribution for 18.6 GHz and
15.4 km route.
Atmospheric disturbances affect the transmission conditions for the line-of-
sight radio-relay systems. The received signal will vary with time and the system
performance is determined by the probability for the signal level drop below the radio
threshold level or the received spectrum to be severely distorted. Hence it is
important to choose optimal frequency for working radio link, its diameters of
parabolic antennas, transmitter power and receiver characteristic. In order to
estimate the performance of a radio link system, a link power budget has to be
prepared. The difference between nominal input level and radio threshold level, the
fading margin are the main input parameters in the performance prediction model.
Table 1
Power budget of radio links 6 GHz and 18 GHz
Parameters
6 GHz, 50 km
18 GHz, 15 km
Transmitter output power [dBm] +20 +20
Feeder loss transmitter [dB] 1 1.2
 Branching loss [dB] 1.5 1.6
Transmitter antenna gain [dB] 39 45.2
Free space loss [dB] 142 141
Receiver antenna gain [dB] 39 45.2
Feeder loss receiver [dB] 1 1.4
Nominal input level [dB] –43.5 –36.4
Receiver threshold [dB] –71 –70
Fading margin [dB] –27.5 –33.6

Nominal input level means power on input receiver for normal propagation
condition, i.e., without attenuation due to multipath or precipitation. Lets consider
typical radio link capacity STM-1 (Table 1):
– 6 GHz frequency, 50 km path length, 1.8 m diameters of parabolic antennas;
– 18 GHz frequency, 15 km path length, 1.2 m diameters of parabolic
antennas.
The link budget for the radio links of 50 km path and 6 GHz frequency is shown
on Fig. 3. In comparison the results
Image…
Fig. 3. Transmit/receive system and its link budget.
power budget with data on Fig. 1 it can be affirmed this fading margin assures
0.21% in the worst month, i.e., 0.42% duplex transmission. In comparison the results
power budget with data on Fig. 2 it can be affirmed this fading margin assures 0.04%
in the worst month, i.e., 0.08% duplex transmission.
Equipment failure rate
The probability that electronic equipment fail is not constant with time. Initial
and wear-out failures give higher probability during the burn-in and wear-out periods.
We concentrate on the useful lifetime where random failures give a constant
probability. After the burn-in period, the equipment failure rate is assumed to be
constant until the wear-out period starts, and the equipment reliability can be
predicted using analytical methods. If the failure rate is λ, the probability of “m”
failures when testing “n” equipment modules in a unit time is given by the binomial
distribution:
Equation 1…
The mean value of this distribution is given by:
Equation 2...
 The average number of surviving equipment modules after unit time is given
by:
Equation 3…
The number of surviving equipment modules vary with time “t” on average
and is given by:
Equation 4…
where “n0” is initial number of equipment modules.
A constant failure rate gives an exponential decrease of surviving equipment
modules.
Mean time between failures. If the failure rate per unit time equals λ , the
mean time between failures (MTBF) T_av is ∆t:
Equation 5…
Calculation of unavailability. Mean time between failures “T_av = ∆t” is
more convenient to use than λ when calculating unavailability. The unavailability of
one equipment module (Fig. 4a) is given by:
Equation 6…
where Tn0 is mean time to repair (MTTR).
For telecommunication equipment:
Equation 7…
and Eq. (6) may be approximated by
Equation 8…
Image…
Fig. 4. One equipment module (a), cascaded modules (b) and parallel
modules (c)
Unavailability of cascaded modules. The system in Fig. 4b will be available
only if all the modules are available simultaneously.
Unavailability’s of its individual modules. Modules may be connected in
parallel. The system will then unavailable only if the modules are unavailable
simultaneously.
Protection switching. Continuous monitoring of digital radio-relay system is
necessary for initiating protection switching under conditions of channel failure.
Protection switching is often effective to improve system availability. In radio-relay
systems the so-called multi-line switching method is usually used. In this method
one or r (r > 1) protection radio channels are prepared for k working channels. When
one of the k working channels is interrupted the signal in the interrupted channel will
immediately be recovered by one of the protection channels over s radio hops. In
such a case, the unavailability N of each both-way radio channels due only to
equipment failure, assuming that the failure rate of switching equipment is negligibly
small, can be expressed by the following formula:
Equation 12…
where s is number of radio hops contained in a switching section and “U” is
probability of an interruption of each hop (as far as equipment failure is concerned,
U = MTTR/MTBF):
Equation 13…
In many cases the number of the protection channels r = 1 and formula (12)
can be written by the following:
Equation 14…
Protection switching is effective not only for equipment failure but also for
multipath fading through frequency diversity.
Equipment failures of modern radio links. The latest radio-relay systems
are designed to be highly reliable and the MTBF becomes extremely long. For high
reliability link systems that must have outages of only a few minutes a year,
equipment failure can play an important part in achieving this reliability. Equipment
failure can come from component failure in the equipment itself or physical damage
to the equipment from violent weather or vandalism. If a microwave relay site is on
a remote mountaintop, access by road or even by helicopter to repair a problem can
take several hours or longer. A single such failure alone may violate the reliability
objective of the system. The equipment reliability is usually given as MTBF. This is
a published equipment specification that varies from 50 000 h (5.7 years) to about
300 000 h (34.2 years) for currently available microwave link equipment. The mean
time to repair must also be considered in looking at the overall probability of and
probability that a single link terminal will fail is:
Equation 15: terminal outage probability…
or 0.00790% for the sample values.
The link fails when the terminal at either end fails, so the link failure probability
due to equipment failure is 0.0159% or a link availability of 99.984%. For a link with
a high fade margin, the equipment outage probability can dominate the overall link
availability. A link that has a single terminal radio is often referred to as unprotected
because of equipment failure may not be acceptable when considering the
availability requirements. For this reason, systems intended for high reliability
applications usually employ redundant equipment at each terminal. Redundant radio
equipment is usually referred to as hot standby equipment, indicating that the
equipment is turned on and at operating temperature. It may then be immediately
and automatically put into service in the event of failure radio units. A rapid switching
process between primary and secondary units interrupts the signal for 20 to 50 ms.
With a hot standby terminal, for the example with the numbers used above, the link
availability is 99.99999984%. This availability is substantially higher than can be
expected from multipath and rain fade outages, removing equipment failure as a
significant factor in determining overall link availability. Human intervention during
maintenance activities can also cause unavailability. The contribution of these
factors is generally difficult to predict through mathematical analysis. However, they
should be considered when designing radiorelay systems.
At the National Institute of Telecommunications “TrasaZ” computer program
has been worked out. This is a radio frequency propagation computer program for
the transmission path between an RF transmitter and a receiver.
This program compute fades expected from multipath and rain. Earth
curvature for standard or substandard atmosphere is taken into account. The
program’s frequency range is from 1 GHz to 60 GHz.
Reference:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1017.235&rep=re
p1&type=pdf