Sector-antenna diversity reception for a multipath fading channel

Personal wireless communication channels are characterized as multipath fading channels, where multipath delay spread is known to be a key parameter degrading the performance of a wireless communication system. In this paper, our previous works are reviewed to demonstrate that sector antenna diversity is a powerful means to mitigate the effect of multipath propagation. First, a convenient multipath delay spread estimation method is introduced. Then the usefulness of sector-antenna to reduce multipath delay spread as well as fading is discussed. This sector antenna diversity is then combined with a Viterbi equalizer, and its performance curve is shown.