Asymptotic BEP and SEP of Quadratic Diversity Combining Receivers in Correlated Ricean Fading, Non-Gaussian Noise, and Interference

In this paper, we study the asymptotic behavior of the bit-error probability (BEP) and the symbol-error probability (SEP) of quadratic diversity combining schemes such as coherent maximum-ratio combining (MRC), differential equal-gain combining (EGC), and noncoherent combining (NC) in correlated Ricean fading and non-Gaussian noise, which in our definition also includes interference. We provide simple and easy-to-evaluate asymptotic BEP and SEP expressions which show that at high signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) the performance of the considered combining schemes depends on certain moments of the noise and interference impairing the transmission. We derive general rules for calculation of these moments and we provide closed-form expressions for the moments of several practically important types of noise such as spatially dependent and spatially independent Gaussian mixture noise, correlated synchronous and asynchronous co-channel interference, and correlated Gaussian interference. From our asymptotic results we conclude that (a) the asymptotic performance loss of binary frequency-shift keying (BFSK) with NC compared to binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) with MRC is always 6 dB independent of the type of noise and the number of diversity branches, (b) the asymptotic performance loss of differential EGC compared to MRC is always 3 dB for additive white Gaussian noise but depends on the number of diversity branches and may be larger or smaller than 3 dB for other types of noise, and (c) not only fading correlation but also noise correlation negatively affects the performance of quadratic diversity combiners.