Analysis of a multi-channel receiver: Wireless and PLC reception

In line with the trend in wireless communications, power line communication (PLC) based systems recently draw considerable attention especially for wideband communication applications due to the advantages they offer. Parallel to the developments in communications and emergence of new concepts such as cognitive radio (CR), the ability to have access to both wireless and power line mediums might be of great value for future radios considering communication performance and reliability issues. In this study, performance of an ideal multi-channel receiver which is able to communicate thorough both wireless and PLC channels is considered. Two combining schemes that are selection combining (SC) and maximal ratio combining (MRC) are analyzed for fading compensation. Their statistics are derived and compared with the simulation results.