S-72.

333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications (2004/2005) 1

An Overview of Diversity Techniques in

Wireless Communication Systems
Hafeth Hourani
Helsinki University of Technology
Communications Lab
hafeth.hourani@nokia.com

Abstract— Fading problem is a major impairment of the II. FADING

wireless communication channel. In this paper we considers
In a typical wireless communication environment, multiple
different techniques to mitigate the fading problem in wireless
channel. The trivial solution for the fading problem would be to propagation paths often exist from a transmitter to a receiver
add a fading margin at the transmitter. However, this is not an due to scattering by different objects. Signal copies following
efficient solution at all. One alternate solution is to take different paths can undergo different attenuation, distortions,
advantage of the statistical behavior of the fading channel. Here delays and phase shifts. Constructive and destructive
comes the basic concept of diversity; where two or more inputs at interference can occur at the receiver. When destructive
the receiver are used to get uncorrelated signals.
interference occurs, the signal power can be significantly
Keywords—Diversity, fading.
diminished. This phenomenon is called fading. The
performance of a system (in terms of probability of error) can
I. INTRODUCTION be severely degraded by fading.
Very often, especially in mobile communications, not only
T HE wireless communication channel suffers from many
impairments such as the thermal noise often modeled as
Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN), the path loss in
do multiple propagation paths exist, but they are also time-
varying. The result is a time-varying fading channel.
Communication through these channels can be difficult.
power as the radio signal propagates, the shadowing due to the
Special techniques may be required to achieve satisfactory
presence of fixed obstacles in the radio path, and the fading
performance.
which combines the effect of multiple propagation paths, and
the rapid movement of mobile units reflectors. Upon the
signal transmission, different signal copies undergo different A. Parameters of fading channels
attenuation, distortion, delays and phase shifts. Due to this The general time varying fading channel model is too
problem, the overall system performance can be severely complex for understanding and performance analysis for
degraded. One example is shown in Figure 1. wireless channels. One approximate channel model is the
wide-sense stationary uncorrelated scattering (WSSUS). In
WSSUS model, the time-varying fading process is assumed to
be wide-sense stationary random process and the signal copies
from the scatterings by different objects are assumed to be
independent. The following parameters are often used to
characterize a WSSUS channel:
1) Multipath Spread Tm
It tells us the maximum delay between paths of significant
power in the channel
2) Coherence Bandwidth ( ∆f )c
Gives an idea of how far apart –in frequency- for signals to
undergo different degrees of fading
3) Coherence Time ( ∆t )c
Gives a measure of the time duration over which the
channel impulse response is essentially invariant (highly
Figure 1. System performance degradation due to fading correlated)
4) Doppler Spread Bd
It gives the maximum range of Doppler shifts
S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications (2004/2005) 2

B. Classification of fading channels

Based on the parameters of the channels and the
characteristics of the signal to be transmitted, time-varying
fading channels can be classified as:
1) Frequency non-selective versus frequency selective
If the bandwidth of the transmitted signal is small compared
with ( ∆f )c , then all frequency components of the signal
would roughly undergo the same degree of fading. The
channel is then classified as frequency non-selective (also
called flat fading). We notice that because of the reciprocal
relationship between ( ∆f )c and ( ∆t )c and the one between
bandwidth and symbol duration, in a frequency non-selective
channel, the symbol duration is large compared with ( ∆t )c .
In this case, delays between different paths are relatively small Figure 2. Fast fading vs. slow fading
with respect to the symbol duration. We can assume that we
would receive only one copy of the signal, whose gain and III. DIVERSITY TECHNIQUES
phase are actually determined by the superposition of all those
Diversity techniques can be used to improve system
copies that come within ( ∆t )c . performance in fading channels. Instead of transmitting and
On the other hand, if the bandwidth of the transmitted receiving the desired signal through one channel, we obtain L
signal is large compared with ( ∆f )c , then different copies of the desired signal through M different channels. The
idea is that while some copies may undergo deep fades, others
frequency components of the signal (that differ by more than may not. We might still be able to obtain enough energy to
( ∆f )c ) would undergo different degrees of fading. The make the correct decision on the transmitted symbol. There
are several different kinds of diversity which are commonly
channel is then classified as frequency selective. Due to the
employed in wireless communication systems:
reciprocal relationships, the symbol duration is small
compared with ( ∆t )c . Delays between different paths can be A. Frequency Diversity
One approach to achieve diversity is to modulate the
relatively large with respect to the symbol duration. We then
information signal through M different carriers.
assume that we would receive multiple copies of the signal.
Each carrier should be separated from the others by at least
2) Slow fading versus fast fading the coherence bandwidth ( ∆f )c so that different copies of the
If the symbol duration is small compared with ( ∆t )c , then signal undergo independent fading. At the receiver, the L
the channel is classified as slow fading. independently faded copies are “optimally” combined to give
Slow fading channels are very often modeled as time- a statistic for decision. The optimal combiner is the maximum
invariant channels over a number of symbol intervals. ratio combiner, which will be introduced later. Frequency
Moreover, the channel parameters, which are slow varying, diversity can be used to combat frequency selective fading.
may be estimated with different estimation techniques.
On the other hand, if ( ∆t )c is close to or smaller than the
symbol duration, the channel is considered to be fast fading
(also known as time selective fading). In general, it is difficult
to estimate the channel parameters in a fast fading channel.
We notice that the above classification of a fading channel
depends on the properties of the transmitted signal. The two
ways of classification give rise to four different types of
channel:
• Frequency non-selective slow fading
• Frequency selective slow fading Figure 3. Frequency diversity
• Frequency non-selective fast fading
• Frequency selective fast fading
S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications (2004/2005) 3

B. Time Diversity IV. DIVERSITY COMBINING METHODS

Another approach to achieve diversity is to transmit the The idea of diversity is to combine several copies of the
desired signal in M different periods of time, i.e., each symbol transmitted signal, which undergo independent fading, to
is transmitted M times. The intervals between transmissions of increase the overall received power. Different types of
the same symbol should be at least the coherence time diversity call for different combining methods. Here, we
( ∆t )c so that different copies of the same symbol undergo review several common diversity combining methods.
For a slowly flat fading channel, the equivalent lowpass of
independent fading. Optimal combining can also be obtained
the received signal of branch i can be written as
with the maximum ratio combiner. We notice that sending the
same symbol M times is applying the (M,1) repetition code. ri ( t ) = Ai e jθi s ( t ) + zi ( t ) , i = 0, 2,..., M − 1
Actually, non-trivial coding can also be used. Error control where s ( t ) is the equivalent lowpass of the transmitted
coding, together with interleaving, can be an effective way to
is the fading attenuation of branch i, zi ( t ) is
jθ i
combat time selective (fast) fading. signal, Ai e
the AWGN.
Out of M branches, M replicas of the transmitted signal are
obtained
r =  r1 ( t ) r2 ( t ) … rM −1 ( t ) 
A. Selection Combining
In this method, the strongest signal branch is selected as
shown in Figure 6.
SNR Select max.
monitor SNR
Figure 4. Time Diversity
Channel 1

C. Space Diversity Channel 2

Another approach to achieve diversity is to use M antennas

Transmitter Receiver
to receive M copies of the transmitted signal. The antennae
should be spaced far enough apart so that different received Channel N
copies of the signal undergo independent fading. Different
from frequency diversity and temporal diversity, no additional
Figure 6. Selection Combining
work is required on the transmission end, and no additional
bandwidth or transmission time is required. The combiner output is given by
However, physical constraints may limit its applications.
y (t ) = Ae jθi s ( t ) + z ( t ) , with A = max { A0 , A1 ,… , AM −1}
Sometimes, several transmission antennae are also employed
to send out several copies of the transmitted signal. Spatial The received SNR can be written as follows:
diversity can be employed to combat both frequency selective A2 Eb
fading and time selective fading. Γ= = max {Γ 0 , Γ1 ,… , Γ M −1}
N0
With uncorrelated branches, the CDF of Γ is
M −1
PΓ (γ ) = Pr {Γ < γ } = ∏ PΓ i (γ )
i =0
For i.i.d branches, we have
M M −1
PΓ (γ ) =  PΓ0 (γ )  , and pΓ (γ ) = MpΓ0 (γ )  PΓ0 (γ ) 

1) Example: Rayleigh Fading Channel

The outage probability is given by

(
PΓ (γ ) = 1 − e −γ γ0 M
) , γ 0 = 2σ 2 Eb N 0

Figure 5. Space Diversity

S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications (2004/2005) 4

Figure 7. Selection Combining in Rayleigh Fading

Figure 9. Maximal Ratio Combining in Rayleigh fading
Channel
channel

B. Maximal Ratio Combining

In this method, the diversity branches are weighted for
maximum SNR as can be seen in Figure 8.

w1
Channel 1

w2

Σ
Channel 2
Transmitter Receiver

wN
Channel N

Figure 8. Maximal Ratio Combining

The combiner output is given by

M −1
y ( t ) = ∑ wi ri ( t ) Figure 10. Comparison between Maximal Ratio Combing
i =0 and Selection Combining
Choose the weights to be the channel gain conjugate [must be
estimated]
M −1 M −1
C. Equal Gain Combining
y ( t ) = ∑ Ai e − jθi ri ( t ) = ∑ Ai e − jθi  Ai e jθi s ( t ) + zi ( t ) 
− jθ i
i =0 i =0 Each branch signal is rotated by e , all branch signals
 
M −1 M −1 are then added
=  ∑ Ai2  s ( t ) + ∑ Ai e− jθi zi ( t ) The combiner output is given by
 i =0  i =0 M
M  M
The SNR of the combined signal is y ( t ) = ∑ e − jθi ri ( t ) =  ∑ Ai  s ( t ) + ∑ e − jθi zi ( t )
 i =0 
∑
M −1 i =1 i =0
Ai2 Eb M −1
Γ= i =0
= ∑ Γi The SNR is given by
N0 i =0 2
 M −1  Eb
Γ =  ∑ Ai 
For Rayleigh Fading channel, the outage probability is given  i =0  MN 0
by:
(γ γ 0 )
γ M i −1
−
PΓ (γ ) = 1 − e ∑
γ0

i =1 (i − 1)!
S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications (2004/2005) 5

Figure 11. Equal Gain Combining

V. CONCLUSION
The diversity is used to provide the receiver with several
replicas of the same signal. Diversity techniques are used to
improve the performance of the radio channel without any
increase in the transmitted power. As higher as the received
signal replicas are decorrelated, as much as the diversity gain

Diversity Combining: MRC outperforms the Selection

Combining; Equal gain combining (EGC) performs very close
to the MRC. Unlike the MRC, the estimate of the channel gain
is not required in EGC
Among different combining techniques MRC has the best
performance and the highest complexity, SC has the lowest
performance and the least complexity

REFERENCES
[1] Aalborg University, Lecture notes, URL:
http://kom.aau.dk/~imr/RadioCommIII/

[2] Markku Juntti, et. al. ,”MIMO Communications with Applications to 3G

and 4G”, Oulu University,

[3] ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, STOCKHOLM, LECTURE NOTES, URL:

HTTP://WWW.S3.KTH.SE/RADIO/COURSES/RKBASIC_2E1511_2004/DOWNL
OADS/LECTURENOTES/