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Abstract—The closed-form error probability expression for bit SC. In SC the receiver needs to monitor all the branches for all
error rate (BER) of binary-phase shift keying (BPSK) the time to select the best (in terms of instantaneous signal-to-
modulation in Rayleigh fading channel, using Alamouti noise-ratio or SNR) branch and thus requires a dedicated
transmission scheme with multi-branch switch-and-examine receiver in each branch. Furthermore, the receiver switches
combining (SEC), is derived for different numbers of receive frequently in order to find the best branch and thereby
antennas (L) and are plotted. The BER plots show that SEC gives introduces undesired switching transients. In SSC these
better performance than the traditional switch-and-stay problems are alleviated by switching to a second branch only
combining (SSC). when the SNR in the current branch falls below a given
threshold SNR. However, as only two paths are involved in
Keywords-Alamouti code; switched combining; BER; Rayleigh
fading; BPSK
switching decisions, SSC cannot provide any additional benefit
when L > 2. In contrast, for SEC, if current path is not of
acceptable quality, then switching-examining process is
I. INTRODUCTION continued until an acceptable path is found or all available
Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) capability has been diversity paths have been examined [4].
standardized in major fourth generation (4G) wireless The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. We
technologies (e.g. WiMax and LTE [1]). For a power and present the system model under study in Section II and using
bandwidth constrained random time-varying wireless channel, the model derive the BER for multi-branch SEC in Section III.
the MIMO feature is of particular interest as it can provide In Section IV, the derived BER expressions are plotted which
additional diversity/ multiplexing/ array gain, enhance show excellent agreement with simulated values. Finally some
capacity, and improve error performance. Space time codes conclusions are drawn in Section V.
(STC) are prevalently used in MIMO systems to realize
transmit diversity, while the traditional combining schemes
may be used to realize diversity at the receiver. Alamouti II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
coding [2] belongs to the general class of space time block The system model with 2 Tx and L Rx antennas is shown
codes (STBC), and is often the preferred choice for its in Fig. 1. Let s1 and s2 denote the equivalent baseband signals
simplicity. The redundancy is applied to space and not in time/
frequency, so there is no expansion of bandwidth. Also (for BPSK {s1, s2} are either E or E , where E is the
Alamouti code is linear in the transmitted symbols, i.e. we can bit energy) corresponding to two successive information bits
expand the code matrix as a linear combination of transmitted which are sent using a 21 Alamouti code [2]. For a slow
symbols and their complex conjugates, which greatly simplifies fading channel it may be assumed that the channel transfer
the analysis and receiver design. function remains constant over two consecutive bit intervals,
and accordingly the received signals on nth branch in these
In this paper, we examined BER performance of a MIMO
system using 2 transmit (Tx) and L receive (Rx) antennas. To two intervals can be expressed as
realize diversity at both ends of the channel, Alamouti coding r1n h1n s1 h2 n s 2 n1n a
and SEC had been used at the transmitter and receiver
respectively. Further, a slow flat Rayleigh fading channel is r2 n h1n s 2 h2 n s1 n 2 n b
assumed and BPSK is used for modulating the transmitted
symbols over the channel. The analysis presented here is a
where s1 , s 2 are the complex conjugates of s1 , s 2 ,
direct extension of the work done by Li and Beulieu [3] who
hmn mn exp j mn ; m 1,2, n 1,2, , L is the complex
considered maximal ratio combining (MRC), selection
combining (SC), and SSC under similar constraints. Although channel gain between the mth Tx antenna and the nth Rx
MRC performance is optimal, from the implementation point antenna with and being the random amplitude and phase
of view SC or SSC is better, especially when non-coherent variation respectively, and the additive noise nmn is a zero-mean
detection is employed. Again, if all the channels are equi- circularly symmetric complex Gaussian random variable (RV)
correlated or equally affected, then MRC performs similar to having a variance N0.
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IEEE CASCOM PGSPC 2010
L Channel
Estimator
Switching Threshold
logic SNR
h11
Time r11, r21 y11, y21
h21 ST Combiner
t t+T
S n11, n21
p s1 -s2*
s1, s2 y1p, y2q ŝ1, ŝ2
a h1L
c *
s2 s1
e h2L Decision
r1L, r2L y1L, y2L device
ST Combiner
Transmitter Switched combiner
n1L, n2L
Figure 1. Transmission model of a 2L MIMO system employing Alamouti code at transmitter and pre-detection switch and examine combining at receiver.
At the receiver, the space time (ST) combiners attached to each and the corresponding cumulative density function (CDF)
branch process the signal to produce an output pair y1n , y 2 n would be
given by
2 2
F n 1 1 n exp n n 0
y1n hˆ1*n r1n hˆ2 n r2*n a n
n
y 2 n hˆ1n r2*n hˆ2*n r1n b which can be derived by expressing the CDF with an
incomplete gamma function [5, (8.350.1)], and further reducing
where ĥmn is an estimate of hmn . If the channel estimator the same with [5, (8.352.1)].
produces perfect channel state information (CSI), it can be The diversity combiner operates in discrete time fashion,
shown that i.e. the branch switching occurs at time t uT , where u is any
integer. As the ST combiners give out the pair y1n , y 2 n after
y mn 12n 22 n s m wmn m 1,2 every 2T amount of time, a parallel to serial conversion (not
by substituting (1) in (2) and using the definition of hmn. The shown in Fig. 1) is necessary before the output can be fed to
the combiner. The channel estimator estimates the current SNR
corresponding noise components w1n , w2 n are
in different branches at every t uT . Using the information,
the switching logic block triggers the selector to switch from
w1n h1*n n1n h2 n n 2*n a
the current branch to the next branch if SNR in current branch
falls below some threshold value (generally found from a table
w2 n h1n n 2*n h2*n n1n b
that stores the optimum thresholds for different SNR).
As the RV wmn has a variance of 2N0, the instantaneous SNR Let the pth and qth branches are selected during the two
available at the ST combiner output would be signalling intervals of interest. The output of the combiner
E y1 p , y2 q is then hard-decoded
n
2N 0
12n 22 n n 1,2, , L
sˆ1 , sˆ2 E sgn y1 p , y 2 q
For a Rayleigh fading channel, the distribution of m 1,n1 is
2,L
2 2
f
exp
E 2 0 III. ANALYSIS OF BER
A. Multi-branch Switch and Examine Combining
Accordingly, the probability density function (PDF) of n will
With the assumption of statistical independence between
follow a central chi-square distribution with four degrees of
freedom fading and noise, the average BER Pe can be calculated by
averaging the non-fading error probability Pe over the
4 n 2 underlying fading random variable as
f n exp n E n n n 0
2n n
6
IEEE CASCOM PGSPC 2010
defined as Qz 1
2 exp u 2 2 du . Further, assuming
z
1 F Q 2 Q 2
th th th
f F th L 1 ; th where,
f , SEC L 1
f F th
j
; th 2 2
j 0 F th 1 1 th exp th
where th is the switching threshold, and f , F are the
PDF and CDF given by (7) and (8).
3
Inserting (11) in (10) we obtain 2 2
th L 1
Pe F th L 1
d F th d j
2
0 j 0 th th th
L2
F th L 1
d F th d
j 0
j
B. Dual-branch Switch and Stay Combining
0 th
In (16), substituting L=2, we get the BER expression of
where Pe f . Substituting the expressions of Alamouti based SSC scheme as given by
Pe and f , the first integral may be solved through
1
Pe F th 1 1 F th Q 2 th
2
integration by parts
2
4
I 1 d 2 Q 2 exp d
Q 2 th 1 th
exp th (20)
0 0 2
1 th 2
exp th
2
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IEEE CASCOM PGSPC 2010
Figure 2. BER versus average SNR curves for Alamouti based SEC scheme Figure 3. BER versus average SNR curves for Alamouti based SEC scheme
with different numbers of Rx antennas. The threshold is set at γth = 3dB in with different numbers of Rx antennas. The threshold γth is set at the optimum
each antenna. value as found from Table I.