Fraunhofer HHI releases new version of radio channel model QuaDRiGa to evaluate satellite radio links


The Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI) has released a comprehensive update for its well-established radio channel model QuaDRiGa (QUAsi Deterministic RadIo channel GenerAtor). In its current version 2.4 the open-source based radio channel model provides various new functions that enable the simulation of non-terrestrial mobile radio networks.

QuaDRiGa was developed at Fraunhofer HHI to facilitate the modeling of MIMO radio channels for specific network configurations such as indoor, satellite or heterogeneous configurations. Besides being a fully-fledged three-dimensional geometry-based stochastic channel model, QuaDRiGa is composed of a collection of features developed in SCM(e) and WINNER channel models. Furthermore, it contains new modelling approaches that offer functions to enable quasi-deterministic multi-link tracking of receiver movements in changing environments. In addition, the channel model is calibrated with channel models 3GPP-3D and the latest new radio channel model 3GPP-NR.

The radio channel model’s main use is to generate realistic radio channel impulse responses to be employed in system-level simulations of mobile networks. These simulations are used to evaluate the performance of new technologies in order to provide an objective measure for the standardization process in organizations such as the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).

QuaDRiGa 2.4 provides new features for the simulation of so-called non-terrestrial networks. Communication satellites in orbits close to the earth’s surface are of particular interest here. Such satellites will extend future mobile radio networks by covering areas that are without access to terrestrial broadband internet. Moreover, the new version contains clustered delay line (CDL) and tapped delay line (TDL) reference channels that are especially important for link-level simulations.

The open-source MATLAB/Octave implementation is available at http://quadriga-channel-model.de .