Order statistics based diversity combining for fading channels

We present a new order statistics based diversity combining scheme (OSDC) for combining a set of independently fading signal amplitudes. The OSDC orders all the received signal amplitudes and uses only the two strongest signals in the combining process. The decision as to whether to use only the strongest or both the strongest and the next strongest is mane depending on the relative strengths of these two highest order statistics. Signal-to-noise ratio performance of the new scheme is compared with that of the traditional schemes such as, selection combining, maximal ratio combining, equal gain combining, and a second order selection combining (SC2), for three channels, namely Rayleigh, Nakagami and exponential. The results show that OSDC performs as well as SC2.