Bit error rate performance of antenna diversity systems with channel correlation

Wireless communication channels such as mobile radio or indoor wireless channels suffer from a number of impairments including signal fading which causes severe performance degradation. The adverse effects of fading can be mitigated by employing space (spaced antennas) diversity techniques at the mobile and/or at the base station. This paper derives the bit-error-rate equations for BPSK using maximal-ratio-combining with correlated fading as an explicit function of the bit energy-to-noise density ratio, the signal envelope cross correlation coefficient, and the diversity order. The special case of dual diversity is studied in detail. In addition, results from the literature for predicting the signal cross-correlation between antennas can be used with the expressions derived to predict BER performance as a function of antenna separation.