AVIAT SPACE DIVERSITY WHITE PAPER

SPACE DIVERSITY AND LOWERING TCO

INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE
Space diversity has been an important feature in long haul microwave systems for many
years to counteract the effects of multi-path fading. Space diversity enables very long links
over highly reflective surfaces such as bodies of water for example, where a non-diversity
link would not deliver the high availability required.
However, most operators are striving to lower their microwave TCO, specifically site and
tower related costs, so the requirement for space diversity links to have an second antenna
at each site is coming under increased scrutiny.
This paper describes the traditional space diversity and diversity combining techniques and
examines several ‘new’ techniques to reduce site requirements and improve diversity link
performance to decrease overall costs. This includes three-antenna diversity and transmit
diversity (also known as ‘Advanced Space Diversity’).

WHAT IS SPACE DIVERSITY?

On microwave paths operating in frequency bands below 13 GHz, propagation outages due
to multipath (also referred to as selective) fading are usually of short duration and are
typically caused by signal reflections that interfere with and degrade the main received
signal. An outage of one hour per year due to multipath fading might represent 1,000 or
more individual outages, each averaging 1 second or less (1 Errored Second, or Severely
Errored Second), on a properly engineered path. On the other hand, propagation outages
totaling an hour per hop due to rain attenuation for links above 13 GHz may consist of only
four or five longer individual outages per year, averaging five to fifteen minutes each.

Wanted Signal Path

a th
ed l P
a nt gna
w i
U n d) S
c te
e fle
(R

Reflective Surface

Figure 1. Non-Diversity Path

The negative effects of multi-path fading can be countered by using Space Diversity (SD),
which employs two antennas separated (usually vertically) on the tower by a pre-determined
distance.

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Even though the system may employ two radios at each end, only one radio transmits at
any one time (typically the main antenna). For a 1+1 hot standby diversity configuration
TR/TR), if the main Tx fails the system will switch to the standby transmitter on the diversity
or lower antenna. Alternatively, you can have a single transmitter/dual receiver system
(TRR) that supports diversity without Tx protection.

Main Wanted Signal Path

Dive
rsity
D Wan
(R ive ted S
efl rsi igna
ec ty
(R

l P at
M ect

ted Un h
e
ai ed
fl

)S w
n

a
ign nte
Un Sig

al d
w na

Pa
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an l

th
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d th

Reflective Surface

Figure 2. Space Diversity Path

During multipath fading event conditions, the combination of the direct (or wanted) and
indirect (or unwanted) received signal at each antenna will result in a distorted receive
spectrum due to a frequency selective notch. Besides this distortion, there is also the
addition or subtraction of the amplitude of the signal, depending on the phase of the
received reflected signal. Since this distortion is uncorrelated between the upper/main
antenna, and the lower/diversity antenna, Space Diversity involves the selection of the best
of the two received signals or a process of combining the signals from both antennas, to
create a significantly improved, good quality signal. Space Diversity does not remove all
multi-path effects but can increase the availability of an unreliable and poorly performing
microwave link to in excess of five-nines uptime.

DIVERSITY SELECTION - SWITCHING OR COMBINING

Diversity selection can be done in one of two methods, Baseband Switching (BBS) or
Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC, also referred to as IF Combining).
Baseband Switching involves demodulating both of the received signals, and then selecting
between the two digital streams on an errorless, frame-by-frame basis, based on
uncorrectable frame detection.
MRC can be performed at the IF (Intermediate Frequency) level, before the demodulator, or
it can be performed in baseband after the demodulator and before the equalizer. In both
cases it can result in a theoretical improvement in system gain improvement of 3 dB when
both signals are in perfect condition without impairment (see Figure 3 below).

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Received Signal, Main Antenna

Combined Signal, after MRC

Received Signal, Diversity Antenna

Figure 3. Space Diversity Maximum Ratio Combining

Aviat uses MRC in our modem technology and diversity protection today, and achieve
equivalent system gain improvements of a more realistic 2 to 2.5 dB in critical real-life
scenarios when diversity is actually needed.
An important thing to remember about the 3dB improvement from using IF/Combining/MRC,
is that it requires two perfect or undistorted signals. If either or both of the signals are
impaired during frequency selective fading, then there will be little to no improvement.
However, the additional 3dB will be helpful during flat fading, which generally occurs over
longer periods and affect all frequencies more or less equally. It is up to the link designer
whether to take this extra gain into account when planning diversity paths. In LOS path
design the extra 3 dB are usually not considered in the link budget, but a “diversity
improvement factor” is considered to improve the multipath availability. For NLOS design
(eg: LTE, WiMAX) the 3 dB is considered in link budget for MIMO 2x2 paths.

ONE-WAY SPACE DIVERSITY USING THREE ANTENNAS

The introduction of a second parabolic antenna on a microwave path can impose increased
costs, since to support a second antenna towers may need to be strengthened, or even
replaced altogether, along with the increased costs to purchase and install the second
antenna (at each end of the link), and any potential tower leasing charges.
It is possible to fully implement space diversity using only three antennas, but in this case
the diversity and fade margin improvement is only available in one direction (from the single
to two antenna side).

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Main
Antenna, Rx
Main Signal Path

Dive
rsity
Sign Diversity
al P a
th Antenna, Rx

Figure 4. 3-Antenna Space Diversity

Three antenna diversity systems have been popular in the past, but in these cases
frequency diversity is used in the single to the two-antenna direction to achieve the diversity
improvement required without the need for a second antenna at that site. However, this
does require the use of a second frequency allocation, which may not be available, may not
be allowed by the National Regulator, or may be prohibitively expensive.

TRANSMITTER DIVERSITY
A further, but little used, technique is referred to as transmitter diversity. In this case, in
Figure 4 above both transmitters in the direction of the single antenna transmit
simultaneously the same signal. This is similar to frequency diversity, but both transmitters
are using the same frequency, and transmitting the same signal over separate paths that
converge at the single antenna in the far end.
A similar technique was developed for NLOS connections between base stations and the
remote subscriber, which works in the case of completely decorrelated NLOS signals. For
an LOS path, the technique attempts to replicate the same gain by artificially decorrelating
the strong correlated signal present in LOS paths. However, in the latter (LOS) case, both
transmitted signals must be accurately synchronized and phase-aligned so that they
theoretically result in a quadrupling (or a +6dB improvement) of the signal level at the single
receiving antenna.
While you can accurately phase align the signals at the transmitter end through signal
processing (similar to MIMO), any small divergence of these signals caused by anomalies
on each path will result in the signals interfering (instead of reinforcing) with each other at
the receiving antenna. If the two signals are just one-quarter of a symbol out of alignment
then the result will be the cancelling out of the gain improvement, but if the mis-alignment is
one-half of a symbol then the two signals will cancel each other out completely and the
entire link will be lost. Furthermore, depending on the transmitter diversity antenna
separation, the interference between the two transmitters will also need to be cancelled,
which is not a perfect process, particularly at high modulation levels.

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This phase mis-alignment cannot be controlled nor predicted, so it is Extremely difficult for a
link planner to know the proportion of time when the link will have the additional +6dB gain,
when there will be partial or no gain at all, or when the link may not even be available. For
this reason, transmit diversity is not, and has not been employed in the microwave industry,
with the exception of the form of frequency diversity.

CONCLUSIONS
Space diversity continues to be a critical technique for long challenging microwave paths. In
some cases, where an operator can tolerate reduced performance in one direction, or if
hybrid diversity can be employed, then only three antennas can be used, reducing site
related costs at one end of the link.
Transmitter diversity can theoretically deliver a significant boost in system fade margin under
perfectly ideal conditions (up to +6dB) but is not predictable and can be just as easily
catastrophic to link performance and is thus not an accepted nor recommended approach.

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