Petri Isomki | Jouni Isoaho

On Diversity Combining

TUCS Technical Report

No 884, April 2008

On Diversity Combining
Petri Isomki
University of Turku, Department of Information Technology Joukahaisenkatu 3-5, 20520 Turku, Finland petri.isomaki@utu.fi University of Turku, Department of Information Technology Joukahaisenkatu 3-5, 20520 Turku, Finland jouni.isoaho@utu.fi

Jouni Isoaho

TUCS Technical Report No 884, April 2008

Abstract Diversity is needed for mitigating the effects of multipath fading in wireless communications. Diversity techniques are based on that receiver gets several signals bearing the same information, through independently fading channels. Diversity can be introduced in three different domains: time, frequency and space. The use of interleaving and coding provides time diversity. Frequency diversity can be achieved by using spread spectrum signals. Of multi antenna congurations for space diversity, receive diversity is the most widely utilized, for instance at the base stations of mobile communication systems. This report discusses techniques for receive diversity combining. Typical methods are presented at rst, and thereafter, various physical layer designs with receive diversity are discussed. Space-time coding is a more advanced technique that can approach the capacity limit of the MIMO channel and give the diversity and coding gains.

Keywords: Diversity, Diversity Combining, Selection Combining, Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC), Space-Time Coding, MIMO

TUCS Laboratory Communication Systems Laboratory

1 Introduction
In wireless communications, diversity is commonly used for compensating the effects of multipath fading. Large attenuation of wireless channel results in very poor performance. Even short periods of deep fade cause large performance penalty [1]. Diversity techniques are based on different structures where receiver gets several signals bearing the same information, through independently fading channels [1]. The probability that all the signals are simultaneously in deep fade is much lower [3]. Diversity can be introduced in three different domains: time, frequency and space. This report concentrates on diversity combining methods for receive diversity that is achieved by using multiple receive antennas, although diversity techniques are also discussed in general. The combining can be performed by using several different methods, and depending on the application, at different stages of the receiver chain. Typical methods include selection combining, equal gain combining and maximal ratio combining. Simpler implementation is the advantage of combining after detection of each branch one by one, i.e. post-detection combining. Combining can also be performed, for example, before or after decoding or DFT if there are such blocks in the physical layer design. Receive diversity is widely utilized, e.g. at the base stations of cellular communication systems. Since size and power consumption of mobile devices are usually constrained, transmit diversity may also be considered, although it is more difcult to exploit than receive diversity [3]. However, there is a more attractive technique: the joint design of coding and transmit diversity. The radio spectrum is also a limited resource. By using multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, a signicantly higher efciency is achievable [3]. Space-time coding is a technique that can approach the capacity limit of the MIMO channel and give the diversity and coding gains. Due to this, and from the practical point of view, thanks to the benets like higher bitrates, increased range and lower power consumption, the MIMO approach has become increasingly popular for wireless local area networks, cellular systems etc. That topic has been extensively covered for instance in [3]. The report1 is organized as follows: Section 2 presents diversity techniques. Sections 3 and 4 present diversity combining methods in general and for various physical layer designs. Existing and upcoming wireless communication systems with diversity techniques are discussed in Section 5.

work is a part of project called Scalable Error-Tolerant Software-Dened Radio Platforms, funded by the Academy of Finland.

1 This

2 Diversity Techniques
This section presents techniques that allow the receiver to get multiple signals through independently fading channels, in order to obtain diversity gain. There are three resources that are used in communications: time, frequency and space. Accordingly, there are these three domains where diversity can be introduced, resulting time, frequency or space diversity. There are certain conditions for each domain that provide independently fading channels. The techniques for different domains are listed in Table 1 and further described in the following subsections. Table 1: Diversity Techniques Domain Technique frequency diversity same information on multiple frequency slots spread spectrum signals time diversity repetition error correction coding and interleaving space diversity receive diversity (multiple rx antennas) transmit diversity (multiple tx antennas) angle-of-arrival diversity polarization diversity macroscopic diversity MIMO and space-time coding

2.1 Frequency Diversity

For frequency diversity, the same information is transmitted on multiple frequency slots [2]. The separation between the slots has to be at least the coherence bandwidth f c of the channel [1]. A shortcoming of the scheme is that multiple transmitters are needed [1]. In practice, frequency diversity is usually achieved by using spread spectrum signals, i.e. direct sequence, frequency hopping or multicarrier spread spectrum modulation [3].

2.2 Time Diversity

For time diversity, the same information is transmitted in different time slots. The separation between the time slots has to be at least the coherence time t c of the channel. The basic form of time and frequency diversity, as described here, can be seen as utilization of repetition block coding, where combining method is the soft decision decoding of the repetition code [2]. There exist much more efcient codes than the repetition code. Thus, in practice, diversity is often introduced by adding error correction coding and interleaving. 2

2.3 Space Diversity

Space diversity is achieved by using multiple antennas that are separated by a large enough distance to make signals uncorrelated [3]. The distance requirement depends, for instance, of the propagation channel and frequency. According to [3], distance of a few wavelengths is usually enough, whereas in [35], it is cited that 10 to 30 wavelengths are required at a base station for correlation of 0.7 according to measurements. In receive diversity, there are multiple receiving antennas, whereas in transmit diversity, there are multiple transmitting antennas. In macroscopic diversity, two or more base stations are used simultaneously [38]. Angle-of-arrival diversity and polarization diversity are special cases of space diversity. Because the required distance of tens of wavelengths corresponds to several meters, a four antenna conguration with 45o polarized components, of the same size as a dual antenna conguration, has been proposed in [35]. Receive diversity is widely used, for example in cellular base stations. Transmit diversity is more difcult to take advantage of, because the transmitted signals are mixed together, and the transmitter does not have instantaneous channel state information [3]. On the other hand, it is difcult to put multiple receive antennas to a mobile device, because of size and power consumption constraints. In contrast, transmit diversity decreases the processing power needed by the receiver [3]. However, the receiver also has to be modied: either feedback or some signal processing at the receiver is needed for exploiting the diversity in the transmitted signal. Thus, the use of transmit diversity has to be dened in the standard, whereas receive diversity can be employed in any receiver design. Transmit diversity can be combined with error control coding. A more optimal scheme is the joint design of transmit diversity, error control coding and modulation [3]. The technique is called Space-Time Coding (STC). With STC, diversity and coding gain can be achieved without bandwidth expansion [3]. Large capacity gains have been shown to be possible by using multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, and STC is a way to approach the capacity limit. Channel capacity formulas for different combinations of transmit an receive antennas can be found in [3]. In practice, multiple diversity schemes are usually used together [3].

3 Diversity Combining Methods

A classication of diversity schemes can be made based on combining methods. In order to get the diversity gain, the signals from multiple channels have to be combined, and the combining method affects the performance of the diversity technique. There are methods with different levels of complexity and varying need for channel state information. The combining techniques have applications also in other contexts, such as frequency diversity (RAKE receiver) [2] or packet retransmission protocols [25]. However, here they are discussed especially from the point of view of space (receive) diversity. The methods with low complexity include equal gain combining (EGC) and selection combining (SC). In selection combining, the signal with the largest instantaneous SNR is chosen as the output. A receiver with selection combiner is shown in Fig. 3.1. In practice, it is difcult to measure SNR directly. Therefore, the highest total power (signal and noise) is used as the selection metric [16]. An analysis of these S + N selection systems is provided in [16] for various binary modulation schemes. The performance of the S + N selection is actually better

RF

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Select

Detector

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Figure 3.1: Selection Combining 4

compared to the traditional SNR based method. For many cases, the performance is equal to the EGC, which needs co-phasing. Equal gain combining and maximal ratio combining (MRC) are linear combining methods, i.e. signals are weighted and added together [3]: r = ai ri
i=1 L

In equal gain combining, the amplitudes of the weights are equal: ai = e ji where i is the phase of the received signal, i.e. the signals are co-phased and added together. In maximal ratio combining, the weights are proportional to the received SNR at each antenna. If the noise powers are assumed equal, the weights are given by: ai = Ai e ji where Ai is the amplitude and i is the phase of the received signal. Therefore, MRC requires the estimates of the channel fading and the signal phase. Maximal ratio combining is the optimal method in the sense that it can maximize received SNR [3]. A receiver with maximal ratio combiner is shown in Fig. 3.2. The bit error probability of BPSK signaling with MRC is given by [1]
L1 1 1 2 k=0

Pb,MR,BPSK =

2k k

1 2 4

Eb /N0 1 + Eb /N0

and the bit error probability with selection combining given by [31] L 2
L1 k=0

Pb,SC,BPSK =

L1 k

(1)k 1

1 1 + (1 + k)

1 1+k

1 Eb /N0

where Eb /N0 is the signal to noise ratio and L is the number of diversity branches. The theoretical bit error rates and results from a simulation for up to four diversity branches are shown in Fig. 3.3. Without the channel state information about fading, noiseless signal power cannot be used as the weight. The effect of using S + N instead of SNR for 5

a1 1 RF
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a2 2 RF
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Detector

aL L RF
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Figure 3.2: Maximal Ratio Combining

10
0

no diversity maximal ratio theoretical selection combining theoretical

10

BER 10
2

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2 SNR (dB)

10

Figure 3.3: Combining Methods 6

10 theoretical BER (MRC) channel attenuation as weight received power as weight equal gain combining

10

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10

Figure 3.4: Maximal Ratio Combining with Incomplete Channel State Information weighting in MRC is depicted in Fig. 3.4. Perfect co-phasing has been assumed. Opposite to the results for SC, the use of S + N decreases performance of MRC. Actually, simulations show that even EGC performs better, i.e. S + N should not be used as the weight. If the carrier phase does not change signicantly over the duration of two symbols, differential PSK (DPSK) modulation can be used [2], and combining can be done without co-phasing [8, 9]. According to [16], EGC after differential detection2 is the optimal combining method for DPSK, while for two branch binary DPSK, S + N selection combining gives equal performance. However, as seen in [8, 9], pre-detection MRC is the most optimal, even though an unnecessarily complex method for DPSK. In generalized selection combining (GSC), more than one branch are chosen for combining. In selection 2 combining (SC2), the two best diversity branches are chosen. Generalized selection combining has been discussed in [31, 33, 34]. In [31], SC2 and SC3 have been compared to MRC for a coherent receiver and to
2 Sometimes

also called post-detection MRC or product detector combiner. See Section 4.

EGC for a non-coherent receiver. The performance of GSC is particularly good in the case of non-coherent detection. In [33], there has been proposed a better selection method for GSC, based on log-likelihood ratio instead of SNR. As mentioned in the previous section, increased power consumption is a disadvantage of receive diversity. A threshold-based adaptive GSC for decreasing processing power requirements has been presented in [27]. Rayleigh fading channel is commonly used in the analysis of diversity techniques. Various departures from the model have been investigated. The effect of correlated diversity has been explored in [20]. An unexpected result is that, in case of selection combining, correlation decreases error rate at low SNR and increases error rate at high SNR. The inuence of the power prole of the fading channel has been analyzed in [26]. The effect of impulsive noise has been investigated in [15]. It is shown that post-detection combining is much more effective against highly impulsive noise than pre-detection SC, EGC or MRC when there are many diversity branches. An adaptive receiver design for non-Gaussian noise has been proposed in [7].

4 Combining Domains
This section presents combining schemes with combining at different stages of the receiver, for various system and receiver designs. The combining of the outputs the branches can be performed either before detection (pre-detection diversity combining) or after detection (post-detection diversity combining). Post-detection combiners weight and combine the diversity channels after detection and therefore, there is no need for co-phasing operation, which has a high implementation cost [8]. A receiver with post-detection combiner is shown in Fig. 4.5. Combining can also be done before, within, or after FEC decoding. In OFDM systems, combining may be performed before or after FFT, and in spread spectrum systems, there may be chip level or symbol level combining. The following subsections represent a view based on the referred papers, rather than being a complete analysis of the topic.

4.1 Post-Detection Combining

For differential detection, the post-detection MRC, shown in Fig. 4.5, is actually equivalent to the equal gain combining without hard limiters after product detectors [8]. In [9], this combining method is called the post-detection product detector combiner.

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Product detector

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Product detector

Decision

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Product detector

Figure 4.5: Post-Detection Maximal Ratio Combiner for DPSK 9

For two branch QDPSK, post-detection MRC outperforms post-detection selection combining by 1.5 dB [8], whereas for 2-DPSK, the performance is equal [16]. For higher order diversity, post-detection MRC performs better than SC [16]. In correlated Nakagami fading channel, the post-detection MRC is only 1 - 3 dB worse than pre-detection MRC, depending on the channel, the branch separation and the number of branches [9]. The optimal combining for differential PSK has been analyzed in [8]. The analysis covers multiplicative and very slow frequency selective Rayleigh fading channels with co-channel interference (CCI). It is shown that post-detection maximal ratio combining is optimal only in the case of equal average power in each branch. If the CCI is the only signicant cause of errors, the weights should be inverse proportional to the average CCI power, whereas in the AWGN limited case, the post-detection MRC provides good, almost optimal performance even for unequal powers [8]. An efcient implementation of post-detection MRC without any multipliers has been presented in [22].

4.2 Combining of Coded Waveforms

It is non-trivial to nd the relationship between branch weights and error rate after decoding [23]. The conventional selection diversity combiners try to minimize the probability of hard decision error [10]. They do not necessarily minimize the post-decoding error probability. In [10], multiple generalized selection combining methods based on the log-likelihood ratio have been presented. Simulations have been performed for low-density parity check and Turbo codes. The coding gain, compared to the traditional SNR based selection, is improved especially when only a few diversity branches are selected for combining. The combined effects of maximal ratio combining and hard decision Viterbi decoding have been investigated in [11]. It is concluded that with two-branch diversity, the tolerable rms delay spread and the spectrum efciency are insensitive to the code rate, whereas without diversity, the performance degrades while code rate increases. Soft decision Viterbi decoding with selection combining in or after decoder, and pre-Viterbi maximal ratio combining in Rician fading channel have been compared in [14]. The post-Viterbi selection combiner compares decoded signals using the likelihood information given by the Viterbi decoder. The method that makes the selection in the decoder computes rst branch metrics for transitions in all diversity channels, and then selects the survivor by comparing all the metrics jointly. The pre-Viterbi MRC performed better than the two other combiners. A method similar to [14] for combining within the Viterbi algorithm has been compared to soft decision decoding with pre-decoding combining also in [13]. Binary PSK and (7,4) Hamming code were used. In this case, the simulations show better performance for the pre-decoding combiner. 10

Viterbi decoder 1 RF
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Viterbi decoder

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Selector

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MLD

path memory Viterbi decoder

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(a)

(b)

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Detector

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MRC

Viterbi decoder

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Code combiner

Viterbi decoder

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Detector

(c)

(d)

Figure 4.6: Combining Methods with Viterbi Decoding [14, 19] Interleaved code combining (ICC) interleaves outputs of diversity branches in order to obtain a combined code word [19]. The combined code word can be decoded by using the same trellis structure that would be used without diversity. Interleaved code combining was originally used in packet retransmission protocols [25]. For diversity combining in a system with trellis coded modulation, the performances of EGC before decoding and ICC have been theoretically analyzed in [25]. The case of 1/2 rate convolutional encoding with QPSK has also been simulated. With large number of diversity branches, the ICC method gives about 1 dB gain compared to the pre-decoding combining, but demodulation complexity increases signicantly. For practical number of branches, the gain is minimal. However, the analysis in [19] shows that ICC is effective for a wider range a of conditions and gives much better performance in channels with frequency selective fading or co-channel interference, compared to the conventional MRC. The four different combining methods for coded waveforms are shown in Fig. 4.6. Post-Viterbi-decoding selection in Fig. 4.6(a) selects the best diversity branch 11

10

Binary PSK over Rayleigh Fading Channel predetection MRC, (7,3) cyclic code (7,3) cyclic code, post decoding combining post detection combining, (7,3) cyclic code MRC, no coding

10

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BER 10
3

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10

Figure 4.7: Diversity and Coding after Viterbi decoding. The method of Fig. 4.6(b) selects the survivor path among all the diversity branches at add-compare-select (ACS) function of the Viterbi algorithm. The pre-Viterbi-decoding maximal ratio combiner in Fig. 4.6(c) performs the combining before the Viterbi decoder. Interleaved code combining is shown in Fig. 4.6(d). In [19], the method (d) has been enhanced by using errorand-erasure correction Viterbi decoding. Unreliable symbols are erased based on the channel state information. In Fig. 4.7, there are shown simulation results of BPSK over fading channel with combining at three different stages. The post-decoding combining is based on the detected errors, which is clearly a non-optimal method. As discussed above, if there is likelihood information available from the decoder, some performance gain can be achieved.

4.3 Combining and OFDM

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) can be used for communication over fading channels. However, there is still performance loss due to fading 12

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DFT

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DFT

MRC

P/S

deinter leaver

decoder

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DFT

Figure 4.8: COFDM diversity receiver with post-DFT combining [23]

even with OFDM, and therefore, combination of space diversity and OFDM has been investigated. In frequency selective fading, conventional combining methods are inefcient for OFDM [23]. MRC before DFT amplies noise if corresponding subcarrier is in deep fade [18]. Post-DFT combining is the optimal method in sense that it maximizes SNR after combining [23]. In [18], there has been proposed an optimal combiner that integrates diversity combining, demodulation and equalization in a maximum likelihood decoder of COFDM. Simulations show that the bit level combiner can provide 2 - 4 dB gain over a conventional symbol level combiner. A post-DFT combining coded OFDM (COFDM) diversity receiver is shown in Fig. 4.8. Post-DFT combining requires FFT processor for each branch. In [5], a joint antenna and post-DFT combining has been proposed. The antenna combining is based on an electromagnetic coupled array antenna, which has limitation on the number of diversity branches. Simulation results show that the joint antenna and post-DFT combiner can achieve the same performance as four branch post-DFT combiner while using only two sets of receiver components. A Pre-DFT combining scheme is proposed in [23], in order to reduce computational complexity. Only one FFT processor is needed. For calculating the weights, time domain correlation between the signals is used, instead of estimating frequency response directly, in order to avoid the need for FFT processors. It is shown that the optimum weights can be obtained from the covariance matrix that is built using the impulse responses of all branches. 13

4.4 Combining and Spread Spectrum

Combining for multipath diversity gain in RAKE receiver of direct sequence CDMA (DS-CDMA) systems has been presented for instance in [2]. In spread spectrum systems, space diversity combining can be performed either at chip level or at symbol level. For spread spectrum OFDM (SS-OFDM), symbol level combining after despreading has been compared to chip level maximal ratio combining in [17]. The chip level combining is shown to be better if the diversity branches are uncorrelated. The chip level combining can compensate the effect of inter code interference caused by frequency selective fading. The SS-OFDM system in [17] is actually commonly known as a multicarrier CDMA (MC-CDMA) system. In [40], there has been presented a post-detection symbol level combiner for multi tone CDMA (MT-CDMA). In the receiver of this scheme, the despreading is performed rst, followed by detection of each tone and combining with other branches. The scheme differs from MC-CDMA in that the transmitter spreads the signal in the time domain and the signal is serial-toparallel converted for transmission using multiple tones, whereas in MC-CDMA, the spreading is performed in the frequency domain and the same information is transmitted at each subcarrier [41]. In MC-CDMA, the subcarriers have to be combined, e.g. by using minimum mean square error combiner (MMSEC). Combiners like EGC and MRC are insufcient due to interference and loss of orthogonality. The space diversity combiner can be included in the same operation, i.e. the chip level combiner in [17]. The MT-CDMA diversity receiver is similar to Fig. 4.8. In addition, there is a despreading block before the DFTs. The MC-CDMA diversity receivers with chip level and symbol level combining are shown in Fig. 4.9. There are MMSE equalization and despreading blocks after the DFTs. The chip level combining is performed before despreading together with an appropriate MMSE equalization, whereas the symbol level combing is performed after despreading. A recurrent neural network (RNN) based symbol level combiner for multicarrier direct sequence CDMA (MC-DS-CDMA) has been proposed in [36]. MTCDMA is a special case of MC-DS-CDMA and from the point of view of diversity combining, they are equal. The performance of the RNN combiner is compared to a square root Kalman combiner in Rayleigh and Rician channels. The RNN combiner uses a real time training algorithm. Chip level combining has been discarded because it needs longer training sequences and more processing power. With high Rician factor, the RNN combiner has better performance only with a low number of diversity branches, in which case the Kalman system has an error oor. With lower Rician factors, the Kalman system is unable to track the changing channel and the RNN combiner becomes the only usable choice. In [39], there has been proposed a combination of space diversity with MRC and adaptive antenna array beam forming for uplink of WCDMA, i.e. for DSCDMA. The adaptive antenna array gives better performance than space diversity 14

RF

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DFT

c
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c c

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& MMSE

L1

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(a)

c c

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MMSE
c c c
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Combining

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c c c
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MMSE c
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(b) Figure 4.9: MC-CDMA diversity receiver (a) with chip level combining; (b) with symbol level combining [17]

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receiver with the same number of antennas [39]. Simulations show that combination where two branches contain four antennas in each branch gives a signicant amount of diversity gain, while interference suppression capability is slightly decreased. Therefore, the combination is suitable for a wider range of environments, including the interference limited case and channels with only few resolved paths.

4.5 Combining and Multiuser Communications

Combined multiuser detection and diversity reception has been investigated in [37]. For a DS-CDMA system, both MRC for coherent RAKE receiver and EGC for differentially coherent RAKE receiver have been presented. Instead of using pre-detection combining, the decorrelating operation of the multiuser detection may be performed rst. The method has a signicant advantage: the estimation of channel fading and diversity combining can be performed on multiple access interference free signals [37]. In [38], it has been shown that by using both multiuser detection and macroscopic diversity in a DS-CDMA system, a signicant performance gain can be achieved, compared to employing another of the techniques alone. In the wide band multiuser communications, there is no loss of diversity order due to linear detection, assuming that the waveforms of different users are linearly independent [30]. In contrast to the wide band case, in narrow band multiuser communications with linear detectors, there is a decrease of achieved diversity with increased number of interfering users. Therefore, pre-combining multiuser detection is even more useful in the narrow band case. In [30], there has been presented a pre-combining group detector, which gives performance gain over the linear ones. The receiver complexity, in addition to the number of antennas, is a new parameter for controlling the diversity order.

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5 Applications
Time diversity is widely exploited in the form of error control coding. Frequency diversity is also achieved in any spread spectrum system. In present wireless communication systems, receive diversity is the type of space diversity that is most widely used, though MIMO systems have become increasingly common. Some applications in which space diversity techniques have been utilized are listed in Table 2. Table 2: Applications of Space Diversity Receive Diversity Transmit Diversity MIMO uplink: GSM, IS-136, UMTS/WCDMA 3GPP LTE UMTS etc downlink: 802.16 (WiMAX) cdma-2000 1xEV-DO, 802.16e (mobile WiMAX) UMTS/HSDPA DVB-T 802.11n (WLAN) Receive diversity can be used for enhancing performance in fading environments and for suppressing co-channel interference, with existing standards and systems (although, it may be useful to dene the use of receive diversity also within standardization, e.g. measurements when there is receive diversity [50] and the impact of diversity on control channels [51].) Therefore, receive diversity is commonly utilized in mobile cellular communications: multiple antennas are employed at base stations, for example in GSM and IS-136 [3]. Even though more common at the uplink, receive diversity is used in the downlink of some 3G cellular systems, i.e. at the mobile device side in cdma-2000 1xEV-DO and UMTS/HSDPA high-speed data chipsets [42, 43]. Macroscopic diversity [38] and polarization diversity [35] are also utilized in 3G systems. There are also DVB-T digital television receivers with receive diversity, designed for mobile reception. In [44], MRC has been used for combining the COFDM signal of DVB-T. The tests show the receive diversity allows signicantly higher speeds for receivers in motion, making DVB-T reception possible at vehicle speeds typical in urban area. Due to the size and power consumption limits of mobile devices, transmit diversity is also gaining more interest. Space-time coding is an efcient way to exploit transmit diversity and reach the capacity limit of MIMO channels. Spacetime coding and multiple antennas are the key additions of the wireless local area network standard draft 802.11n [45]. Marketing claims often suggest very high ratings, such as 270 Mbps throughput, while actual tests show bit rates around 80 Mbps even at good conditions [52]. Nevertheless, the actual bit rates are far higher than without diversity, i.e. 802.11g, and the operating range is greater. The 17

WiMAX xed (802.16) and mobile (802.16e) broadband standards also include MIMO in the denition of the physical layer [46, 47]. In the WCDMA air interface standard for 3G mobile phone networks, transmit diversity with two transmit antennas has been included since 3GPP WCDMA Release 4 [48]. MIMO with up to four transmitting and four receiving antennas will be included in high speed packet access networks [49].

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6 Conclusions
Because of the effects of multipath fading, some form of diversity is needed in order to reach reliable transmission. This report discussed the diversity techniques at rst in general. Diversity can be introduced in three different domains: time, frequency and space. Time diversity is often achieved by using error correction codes and interleaving. Spread spectrum systems make use of frequency diversity. Space diversity can be based on multiple receive or transmit antennas and signal processing for combining. In practice, multiple diversity schemes are usually used together. The report concentrated on space diversity, more specically, on diversity combining for receive diversity. Receive diversity is commonly utilized, e.g. in cellular base stations for uplink. There are various techniques for combining the signals from the antennas, with different trade-offs between complexity and efciency. Different physical layer designs have also variable choices of the combining methods. For instance, encoded waveforms may be combined before, within or after the decoder. Pre-detection maximal ratio combining is an optimal method in the sense that it can maximize the signal-to-noise ratio of the received signal. However, there are various rationales to use other combining methods. For instance, generalized selection combining may provide the required trade-off between complexity (or power consumption) and performance. Post-detection combining may be used for the same reason as non-coherent modulation in general, i.e. signicantly lower complexity with a reasonable performance loss. Variations from the Rayleigh channel model may also affect the choice of the combining method. In the presence of impulsive noise, post-detection combining may actually perform better. It is also non-trivial to predict error rates after combining and decoding of coded waveforms, i.e. the optimal combining has to be designed for the postdecoding error rate. Again, the relative performance of the methods also depends on the type of the channel: interleaved code combining has been shown to be robust for variable conditions, while pre-decoding MRC may be a good choice in some cases. In OFDM systems, pre-DFT combining may amplify noise, and in MC-CDMA, a more complex MMSE combiner is needed due to interference and loss of orthogonality. In multiuser communications, it is preferable to combine the branches after detection, in order to be able to remove the interfering signals. In conclusion, the choice of combing method depends on the physical layer design and the operating conditions, i.e. there is no one ts all strategy for diversity combining. The method has to be xed in the design phase according to the application or, in systems like software dened radio, the method may be recongured as the need arises. Finally, some applications that exploit space diversity were discussed. The processing power and size of mobile devices limit the use of receive diversity for downlink of mobile cellular communication systems. Nevertheless, two receive 19

antenna congurations are sometimes used also at the mobile station. For transmit diversity, the receiver also has to be modied: either feedback or some signal processing at the receiver is needed. Thus, the use of transmit diversity is more difcult to exploit and has to be dened in the standard, whereas receive diversity can be employed in any receiver design. Due to the limited feasibility of receive diversity in mobile devices, the use of multiple transmit antennas is gaining more interest. In addition to combating multipath fading, MIMO channel combined with space-time coding can give a large capacity gain. Thus, the MIMO systems have become one of the most active research topics in wireless communications, and the scheme has been introduced into a number of the state of the art commercial applications, such as high speed WLANs and upcoming 3G cellular networks.

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