DIVERSITY

DIVERSITY
• One of the best techniques to mitigate the effects of fading is diversity
combining of independently fading signal paths
• Independent signal paths have a low probability
of experiencing deep fades simultaneously.
Received Signal Power

0
-20
(dBm)

-40
-60
-80
-100
0 4 8 12 16 d
The chance that two deep fades
occur simultaneously is rare.

• The idea behind diversity is to send the same data

over independent fading paths

• These independent paths are combined in some

way such that the fading of the resultant signal is reduced.

8C32810.105-Cimini-7/98
DIVERSITY
For example, consider a system with two
antennas at either the transmitter or receiver
that experience independent fading.
If the antennas are spaced sufficiently far
apart, it is unlikely that they both experience
deep fades at the same time.
By selecting the antenna with the strongest
signal, called selection combining, we obtain
a much better signal than if we just had one
antenna.
RECEIVER DIVERSITY
 In receiver diversity the independent fading paths
associated with multiple receive antennas are
combined to obtain a resultant signal that is then
passed through a standard demodulator.
 The combining can be done in several ways
which vary in complexity and overall
performance.
 Most combining techniques are linear: the output
of the combiner is just a weighted sum of the
different fading paths or branches, as shown in
Figure below for M-branch diversity.
LINEAR COMBINER
when all the complex are zero, except
one, only one path is passed to the
combiner output.
If more than one of the are nonzero,
the combiner adds together multiple
paths, where each path may be weighted
by different value.
Combining more than one branch signal requires
co-phasing, where the phase θi of the i th branch
is removed through the multiplication by
for some real-valued
 This phase removal requires coherent detection
of each branch to determine its phase θi. Without
co-phasing, the branch signals would not add up
coherently in the combiner, so the resulting
output could still exhibit significant fading due
to constructive and destructive addition of the
signals in all the branches.
DIVERSITY COMBINING TECHNIQUES
SELECTION COMBINING
 In selection combining (SC), the combiner outputs the signal on
the branch with the highest SNR This is equivalent to
choosing the branch with the highest if the noise power
Ni = N is the same on all branches.
 Since only one branch is used at a time, SC often requires just
one receiver that is switched into the active antenna branch.
However, a dedicated receiver on each antenna branch may be
needed for systems that transmit continuously in order to
simultaneously and continuously monitor SNR on each branch.
 With SC the path output from the combiner has an SNR equal
to the maximum SNR of all the branches.
 Moreover, since only one branch output is used, co-phasing of
multiple branches is not required, so this technique can be used
with either coherent or differential modulation.
THRESHOLD COMBINING
 SC for systems that transmit continuously may require a
dedicated receiver on each branch to continuously
monitor branch SNR.
 A simpler type of combining, called threshold
combining, avoids the need for a dedicated receiver on
each branch by scanning each of the branches in
sequential order and outputting the first signal with SNR
above a given threshold
 As in SC, since only one branch output is used at a time,
co-phasing is not required. Thus, this technique can be
used with either coherent or differential modulation.
 This method also called Switch and Stay
combining(SSC).
MAXIMAL-RATIO COMBINING
(MRC)
EQUAL-GAIN COMBINING
 DIVERSITY PERFORMANCE
• There is dramatic improvement even with two-branch
selection combining.

Pb Pout
10 -1 99.99
99.9
5 Maximal 99.5
98.0
Ratio 90.0
2 Combining 80.0
70.0
10 -2 60.0
50.0
5 40.0
30.0 M=2
2 20.0
10 -3 M=1 10.0
5 5.0 Maximal
Ratio
2 2.0 Equal
10 -4 1.0 Gain

1
5 M=2 0.5

=
M
2 0.2 Selection
10 -5 0.1
5 0.05
M=4
2 0.02
10 -6 0.01
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10
gb, SNR/bit, dB 10log

• The output SNR with Maximal-Ratio Combining improves

linearly with the number of diversity branches, M Þ the
complexity becomes prohibitive.

7C29822.014-Cimini-9/97
TRANSMITTER DIVERSITY
 In transmit diversity there are multiple transmit antennas
with the transmit power divided among these antennas.
 Transmit diversity is desirable in systems such as cellular
systems where more space, power, and processing
capability is available on the transmit side versus the
receive side.
 Transmit diversity design depends on whether or not the
complex channel gain is known at the transmitter or not.
 When this gain is known, the system is very similar to
receiver diversity. However, without this channel
knowledge, transmit diversity gain requires a combination
of space and time diversity via a novel technique called
the Alamouti scheme
Channel known at the transmitter
Channel unknown at Transmitter

Hard to generalize to more than 2 TX antennas