On antenna array receiver principles for space-time-selective Rayleigh fading channels

Optimum (in the sense of minimum-error probability) single-symbol diversity detection for fading, noisy channels is too complex for practical implementation. A simplified, near-optimum array receiver is proposed, which is based on the statistics (i.e., the covariance-function matrix) of the fading channel. This detector is then analyzed by calculating the exact error probability. When there is a spread of the direction of arrival of the incident radio waves, the proposed detector significantly gains over an adaptive antenna array (which forms a weighted sum of the received antenna signals). Also, for this adaptive array, a fundamental difference between maximum-likelihood weights and least-mean-square weights is observed.