Microdiversity on rician fading channels

-The performance of an L-branch equal gain (EG) combiner on slow and nonselective Rician fading channels is analyzed. Two performance criteria are considered; the probability distribution of signal-to-noise power ratio (SNR) at the output of the EG combiner and the average bit error rate (BER). Matched filter receivers are considered for two binary modulation formats, coherent phase shift keying (NCFSK). Results using both maximal ratio combing (MRC) and selection diversity combining (SC) are presented for comparison. Our results show that from a feasibility and practical tradeoffs point of view, the performance of an EG combiner may be a good as that of a MR combiner. The effects of gain unbalance between branches of the EG combiner on the probability distribution of SNR and on the bit error rates are also investigated.