Outage probability is defined as the probability that an outage will occur during a specified time period. Thus, it may be a kind of a performance metric for the channel. This term is connected with fading channels. In a situation that channels degrade under some circumstances caused by very long distances, the outage is likely to happen. While traveling through such distances, a signal may be affected by different factors such as weather conditions and phenomena like rain, snow, fog, strong wind or even differences between cold and hot mass of air. Signal distortion can also be caused by human factors (e.g. irrigation, buildings, bridges) or natural shape of Earth surface (mountains, seas etc.) encountered on its way. Reflection, diffraction, absorption and scattering caused by the above factors are the physical phenomena which affect the traveling of a signal and may be the reason of the signal loss.
Usually a signal channel’s characteristics tend to change in time. There are both periods of sufficient and insufficient signal strength, when the outage is experienced. You can predict the occurring of outage, assuming you know the probability distribution of the fading (remembering that fading itself can be of different scales, or even a multipath one). It is also easier to calculate when the signal drops below the noise power level. What can make the calculations more complex and difficult to make, are fading and shadowing of the signal, both of which affect the outage probability.
When you want to calculate or simulate the outage probability, the easiest way is to use MATLAB. Such simulations can be used to demonstrate and model the fading channel as well as outage itself.
Usually a signal channel’s characteristics tend to change in time. There are both periods of sufficient and insufficient signal strength, when the outage is experienced. You can predict the occurring of outage, assuming you know the probability distribution of the fading (remembering that fading itself can be of different scales, or even a multipath one). It is also easier to calculate when the signal drops below the noise power level. What can make the calculations more complex and difficult to make, are fading and shadowing of the signal, both of which affect the outage probability.
When you want to calculate or simulate the outage probability, the easiest way is to use MATLAB. Such simulations can be used to demonstrate and model the fading channel as well as outage itself.
