A transmitted signal undergoes changes while traveling through the propagation path to the receiver. The effect of these changes is commonly called fading. In free-space, a signal follows one path and arrives at the receiver with little attenuation. This is not the case for a signal that encounters obstacles in the propagation path. Instead, the signal is reflected, diffracted, and scattered from objects that are present in the path. Each path can have a different amount of attenuation, delay, and fading type. The combination of these different paths is termed multipath fading or multipath propagation. Simulating different numbers of paths with different fading configurations is essential for thoroughly testing receiver performance.
At the receiver, the signals can add constructively or destructively, causing random and rapid fluctuations in the received amplitude when the receiver or the transmitter is moving. Due to the Doppler effect, this situation also causes the signal to be spread in the frequency domain.
The fading phenomena can be classified into two main groups known as large scale fading and small scale fading. The large scale fading is used to describe the signal level at the receiver after traveling over a large area (hundreds of wavelengths). Small scale fading is used to describe the signal level at the receiver after encountering obstacles near (several wavelengths to fractions of wavelengths) the receiver.