Performance of a frequency-hopped differentially modulated spread-spectrum receiver in a Rayleigh fading channel

The performance of a spread-spectrum receiver previously described by the authors is analyzed in detail. Performance curves are given for a wide range of mobile radio channel conditions, including multipath distortion and correlated fading. The use of optimal filters to combat the former and space diversity to combat the latter are investigated. Some errors in the authors' earlier papers are corrected. The form of space diversity suggested has the unusual feature that it can be employed at the fixed station site only and provide diversity in both communication paths, i.e., to and from the mobile. Degradation due to fading and other aberrations is shown to be in the range 3-6 dB for typical mobile channel conditions. In a nonfading channel the receiver is suboptimum by about 3 dB.