Signal detection performance in indoor environments with a synthetic antenna array

This paper analysis the performances of a single antenna handheld receiver in detecting a signal in a Rayleigh multipath fading environment. If the antenna is spatially fixed during the time interval that the signal is sampled then signal coherency is maintained. However, the signal will be subject to statistically large fading losses. The alternative is to spatially translate the antenna along some arbitrary random trajectory during the snapshot interval. It will be shown that a significant net processing gain resulting from randomly moving the antenna relative to keeping it stationary is achievable. It is further demonstrated that for a given utilization scenario, there is an optimum trajectory size which maximizes the processing gain advantage of the moving antenna. An extensive set of measurements based on CDMA - 2000 pilot signals propagated from outdoor terrestrial base stations, captured in indoor multipath environments using stationary and moving antennas are used to experimentally verify these theoretical findings.