Radio--Transmitters and transmission--Fading

In this thesis, we study the effect of Rice fading on the performance of Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. The field-theoretic foundation of pseudo-random-noise (PRN) codes, their implementation, and their use in generating unique navigation messages in the GPS receiver is reviewed. The processing of the spread-spectrum signals within the digital delay locked loop (DDLL) in the receiver is also considered. In particular, we derive numerical expressions that can be easily evaluated for the probability error and the mean-time to lose-lock, for a DDL operating in an additive white gaussian noise (AWGN) channel in the presence of Rice fading. The results obtained generalize results in the literature for the Rayleigh fading environment.

The performance of a multicarrier DS CDMA system is evaluated over a Nakagami multipath fading channel. After the spreading process, the data sequence is applied to multiple carrier rather than a single carrier. Each carrier is provided a corralator in the receiver, and the maximal-ratio combiner is used for the corralator outputs. A bandlimited spreading waveforms are used for self-interference prevention. Robustness to multipath fading and narrow band interference suppression are achieved by this type of configuration. A comparison is made with a single carrier system in the presence of interference.

Based on the theoretical method developed by Clark and Greenstein for frequency-selective Rayleigh fading channel, we develop a general model for frequency-selective Nakagami fading channel. We derive analytical expressions of the average bit-error-rate in an ideal space diversity mobile radio receiver using the matched filter bound. Our simulation results show that the influences of the diversity order, the shape of the multipath delay profile, and delay spread of the multipath delay profile. Five shapes are considered in our simulation. Our simulation results highlight the importance of the ratio the normalized delay spread d. The results show that the delay profile is of no importance for $d<0.3,$ but can have a profound influence for $d\geq0.3.$

Closed form results for the symbol error probabilities are derived for M-ary, L branch Selection diversity schemes and Partial Decision combining schemes in a Nakagami fading environment using noncoherent frequency-shift keying modulation. The Maximum SNR selection, the Maximum output selection, the Optimal partial decision, and the Majority voting schemes are considered in this analysis. The analysis is not limited to integer values of the Nakagami fading parameter m. Results for the Rayleigh fading channel are obtained and presented as special cases of those of the Nakagami fading model. The symbol error probability when the diversity branches undergo different fading statistics with unequal mean SNR are considered for the Maximum SNR selection scheme. Outage probabilities are also calculated for some of the diversity combining schemes. A comparison of all the four schemes are discussed using the performance curves.

This dissertation is concerned with studies on the performance aspects of digital cellular radio systems operating in non-Gaussian multipath fading environments. The multipath fading channel, modeled as a superposition of sinusoidal random vectors, is the main focus of this work. Elementary phase distributions, which cause quadrature components of the composite received vector to be correlated, are studied and relevant envelope distribution for the resulting non-Gaussian quadrature components is investigated. The Student-t distributed random process is chosen to model the quadrature components in an indoor multipath fading channel when the number of sinusoidal random vectors is small. For the correlated bivariate non-Gaussian quadrature components, the exact probability distribution function, corresponding to those elementary phase distributions as well as the Gaussian approximation for resultant envelope are evaluated. The scenario where the elementary envelope is beta distributed is also considered. Spherically invariant random process (SIRP) is also used to model the multipath fading channel. The performance analysis based on the spherically invariant multipath fading channel, is then evaluated. The system performance, specified in terms of outage probability and average error probability, significantly depends on the choice of characteristic probability distribution function of the random process that describes the RF ambient. It is shown that the optimality of the optimum combining and maximal ratio combining schemes in interference-limited environments is still retained under the spherically invariant multipath fading channel model.