Ergodic capacity of switch-and-examine combining under flat Rayleigh fading channels

Abstract

Switch-and-examine combining (SEC) is an interesting diversity technique that is simpler than selection combining (SC), whereas its performances is similar in terms of bit error rate (BER) and diversity order. As ergodic capacity is also a key performance index in modern wireless systems, this article analyzes the ergodic capacity of the SEC system. The numerical results show that the ergodic capacity of SEC with optimal threshold is similar to that of SC for arbitrary number of diversity branches.