Linear diversity analyses for M-PSK in Rician fading channels

Symbol and bit error rates of M-ary differentially encoded/differentially decoded phase-shift keying (MDPSK) and coherent M-ary phase-shift keying (M-PSK) over slow, flat, Rician fading channels are derived when linear diversity combining is applied to combat degradation due to fading. These closed-form solutions are general enough to cover several cases of nondiversity, additive white Gaussian noise (the nonfading mode), Rayleigh fading, mixtures of Rayleigh and Rician fading (the mixed mode), and Rician fading. The results presented here can also be applied to predict the error-rate performance when recent transmit diversity techniques are employed. The solutions for the nonuniform fading profile are included as well. Error probabilities are graphically displayed for both modulation schemes.