Comparison of diversity combining techniques for Rayleigh-fading channels

Several methods of diversity combining for a Rayleigh-faded channel are evaluated and compared. The methods considered are, for coherent reception, maximal ratio combining (MRC), selection combining (SC), and a generalization of SC, whereby the two (three) signals with the two (three) largest amplitudes are coherently combined. We will call this method second (third) order SC, and denote it SC2 (SC3). Similar techniques are also investigated for noncoherent reception, with equal gain combining (EGC) replacing MRC, and noncoherent versions of SC2 and SC3. Numerical results indicate that SC2 and SC3 significantly enhances the bit-error rate (BER) performance relative to that achievable with SC, and under certain conditions approaches the performance achieved by MRC or EGG. The performance enhancement of SC2 and SC3 is especially noticable for noncoherent reception, where EGC is seen to provide the best performance only for low BER values. In fact, when the BER is 10/sup -3/ or greater, SC2 and SC3 performed comparably to EGG, and in some cases performed better than EGC.