On the diversity in multiantenna HF communications

The objective of this paper is to contribute to one of the most challenging issues in modern HF communications: the exploitation of the multiantenna diversity and its impact in the need of time interleaving. Comparing two of the main diversity sources in multiantenna communications (the polarization and spatially separated antennas) we expect to empirically determine which is the best option as a trade off between performance and practical implementation issues, especially focused in the case where strict space constraints apply, as in naval and air platforms. In such applications, it is almost impossible to have antennas with enough physical separation to exploit some diversity. If the dual polarization processing proves itself as a reliable source of diversity, with just some additional hardware any existing system can be easily upgraded, improving the overall BER figures and/or reducing the delays imposed by the coders/interleavers.