Use of

Diversity techniques
in
fading channels

Prof. M. Salim Beg

October 2021
 BER curves

Reference:
E-book -
Goldsmith,
Wireless
Communications
(Chapter 6)

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 BER curves

Reference:
E-book -
Goldsmith,
Wireless
Communications
(Chapter 6)

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Rayleigh fading channel

Deep fades

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 What happens during fade?
◼ During a fade
◼ Signal strength is small
◼ More errors may occur

◼ Deeper fade has higher probability of errors

◼ More the fade duration, longer the error burst.

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What happens during fade?

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 Resultant signal strength at various locations

Deep fade locations

Resultant signal strength at different locations in a area (x-y plane)

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 Main goal of diversity
◼ to improve the overall performance
◼ by reducing the effective BER somehow

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Rayleigh fading channel 1st

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Rayleigh fading channel 2nd

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Rayleigh fading channel 1st & 2nd

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 Principle of diversity
◼ Ensure that the same information reaches the receiver
on statistically independent paths
◼ Consider simple case of receiver with two antennas:
◼ these two antennas are assumed to be far enough from
each other that small-scale fading is independent at the two
antennas.
◼ Receiver always chooses the antenna that has larger
instantaneous receive power.
◼ As signals are statistically independent, the probability that
both antennas are in a deep fade simultaneously is
low (certainly lower than the probability that one antenna is
in a deep fade)
◼ Diversity thus changes the SNR statistics at detector input.
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 How to achieve diversity
◼ by changing the effective channel characteristics
◼ i.e. making sure that effectively the SNR has smaller
probability of being low.

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 One way to implement diversity
◼ Use two antennas at receiver, and
◼ receiver takes the stronger signal of the two received.

Transmitter

Receiver

◼ Receive antenna diversity: 1 Tx antenna, 2 Rx antennas

◼ An example of space diversity

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 One way to implement diversity
◼ Use two antennas at receiver, and receiver takes
the stronger signal out of the two received.
◼ Receive antenna diversity

◼ Each receive antenna will get a signal strength

different from that of the other antenna
◼ exploit the low probability of experiencing deep fades
simultaneously on the two paths.

◼ Diversity changes the SNR statistics at detector input

(i.e. after demodulation).

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 Key question in Rx antenna diversity
◼ Performance depends on correlation /
decorelation of the signals received on two
antennas
◼ A large correlation between these signals is
undesirable, as it decreases the effectiveness of
diversity.
◼ It is important to establish relationship between
antenna spacing and correlation coefficient.
◼ Key question: what should be the antenna spacing?

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 Key question in Rx antenna diversity
◼ For two statistically independent signals, the
correlation coefficient becomes zero.

◼ Signals are often said to be “effectively” decorrelated

if Correlation Coefficient of Signal envelopes x and y
[denoted by ρxy or simply ρ] is below a certain
threshold (typically 0.5 or 0.7)

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 Key question in Rx antenna diversity
Decorrelation
(defined as
ρ=0.5) occurs
at antenna
separation of
λ/4.

For a GSM
phone
operating at
900 MHz,
minimum
separation
between
antenna
elements is
about 8 cm.

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 Types of space diversity
◼ Types of Space diversity (also called antenna diversity)
◼ Receive antenna diversity
◼ Transmit antenna diversity

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 Another way to implement diversity
◼ Another example of space diversity involves
◼ Use two antennas at transmitter, and
◼ One antenna at receiver
◼ receiver takes the stronger signal of the two received.

Transmitter Receiver

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 Another way to implement diversity
◼ Another example of space diversity involves
◼ Use two antennas at transmitter, and
◼ two antennas at receiver
◼ receiver takes the stronger signal of the two received?

Receiver
Transmitter

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 Types of space diversity
◼ Types of Space diversity (or antenna diversity)
◼ Receive antenna diversity
◼ Transmit antenna diversity
◼ Transmit and receive antenna diversity

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Types of implementations

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 Recap of diversity discussed so far!
◼ Considered only:
◼ Selection diversity: best/strongest signal is selected and
then same is processed further (demodulated and decoded),
while others are discarded.

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 Recap so far!
◼ What we have seen so far is only ‘Selection Diversity’.
◼ Selection Diversity wastes signal energy by
discarding a number of copies of the received signal.
◼ This drawback is avoided by ‘combining diversity’
which exploits all available signal copies.

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 Combining Diversity
◼ Combining diversity exploits all available signal copies.
◼ Each signal copy is multiplied by a (complex) weight,
and then added up. Each complex weight can be
thought of as consisting of a phase correction, plus a
(real) weight for the amplitude.

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Types of Combining Diversity

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 Is antenna diversity the only type?
◼ Question: Is antenna diversity the only type?
◼ Answer: No.
There are other types of diversity such as:
◼ Frequency diversity
◼ Polarization diversity
◼ etc.

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 References
◼ Andrea Goldsmith, Wireless Communications, Cambridge Un.
press, 2005.
◼ Chapt. 7 (Diversity)

◼ A. F. Molisch, Wireless Communications, Wiley, 2nd ed., 2011,

John Wiley.
◼ Chapt. 13 (Diversity)

◼ M. Salim Beg, Novel detection techniques for data transmission

over a fading channel, PhD thesis, Loughborough Univ., 1990.

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