Asymptotic error-rate behavior for noncoherent on-off keying in the presence of fading

This article investigates the asymptotic error-rate behavior for the noncoherent on-off keying (OOK) signaling scheme in different fading environments and at both extremes of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). A transcendental equation to compute the optimum threshold level of noncoherent OOK operating over a Rician fading channel is derived. The optimum threshold level and its corresponding ratio of the mark and space error probabilities in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). Rayleigh, and Rician channels are tabulated as a function of the SNR. Geist (see ibid., vol.42, p.225, 1994) has shown that mark and space errors contribute equally to the average error probability in an AWGN channel when the SNR is large with optimum threshold setting. We show that mark errors predominate when the SNR is small and/or in fading channels.