Outage probability comparisons for diversity systems with cochannel interference in Rayleigh fading

Space diversity is an effective method to combat fading and cochannel interference (CCI) in wireless systems. In this paper, outage performances of several diversity schemes, including a practical variation of maximal-ratio combining that does not require signal-to-noise ratios at different antennas, equal-gain combining, and selection combining, are compared analytically for an interference-limited environment in a Rayleigh fading channel. Our analysis provides insight into the performance of diversity schemes in the presence of CCI as well as assesses the impact of cochannel interferer power distributions.