Performance Analysis of Maximal Ratio Diversity Receivers over Generalized Fading Channels

Abstract

Diversity reception, is an efficient communication receiver technique for mitigating the detrimental effects of multi-path fading in wireless mobile channels at relatively low cost. Diversity combining is the technique applied to combine the multiple received copies of the same information bearing signal into a single improved signal, in order to increase the overall signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and improve the radio link performance. The most important diversity reception methods employed in digital communication receivers are maximal ratio combining (MRC), equal gain combining (EGC), selection combining (SC) and switch and stay combining (SSC) (SimonA da Costa & Yacoub, 2007; 2008; Ermolova, 2008; 2009; Morales-Jimenez & Paris, 2010; Peppas et al., 2009; 2010). For example, in (da Costa & Yacoub, 2007), the average channel capacity of single branch receivers operating over η-μ channels was derived. In (da Costa & Yacoub, 2008), expressions for the moment generating function (MGF) of the above mentioned channel were provided. Based on these results, the average bit error probability (ABEP) of coherent binary phase shift keying (BPSK) receivers operating over η-μ fading channels was obtained. Furthermore, in (da Costa & Yacoub, 2009), using an approximate yet highly accurate expression for the sum of identical η-μ random variables, infinite series representations for the Outage Probability and ABEP of coherent and non Performance Analysis of Maximal Ratio Diversity Receivers over Generalized Fading Channels