MICRODIVERSITY ON RICIAN FADING CHANNELS

The performance of an L-branch equal gain (EG) combiner on slow and nonselective Rician fading channels is analyzed. Two performance criteria are considered; the probability distribution of signal-to-noise power ratio (SNR) at the output of the EG combiner and the average bit error rate (BER). Matched filter receivers are considered for two binary modulation formats, coherent phase shift keying (CPSK) and noncoherent frequency shift keying (NCFSK). Results using both maximal ratio combining (MRC) and selection diversity combining (SC) are presented for comparison. Our results show that from a feasibility and practical tradeoffs point of view, the performance of an EG combiner may be as good as that of a MR combiner. The effects of gain unbalance between branches of the EG combiner on the probability distribution of SNR and on the bit error rates are also investigated. The Rician fading model may be used to model both the microcellular environment and the mobile satellite fading channel. Hence, the results of this paper may be useful in both of these areas. Furthermore, in the development of the analysis, we present an efficient method for computing the distribution of sums of Rician random variables. This may be useful for other problems involving Rician fading. The suitability of modeling a Rician fading environment by a properly chosen Nakagami model is examined. A formula for determining the corresponding values of Rician parameter K and Nakagami parameter m is also assessed.