Performance of S + N Selection Diversity Receivers in Correlated Rician and Rayleigh Fading

The performances of two signal-plus-noise (S + N) selection diversity receivers employing noncoherent M-ary frequency shift keying (MFSK) in slow, flat, correlated Rayleigh and Rician fading channels are examined. The branches are assumed to be equally correlated for Rician fading. The correlation model for Rayleigh fading is more general than the equally correlated scenario and includes it as a special case. Analytical expressions are derived for the average symbol error rate (SER) and the average bit error rate (BER) of each receiver structure. Extensive Monte Carlo simulation results are presented to validate the analytical expressions. The performances of the S + N SC receivers are compared to the performance of the classical SC receiver. The effects of correlation, average fading power imbalance and diversity order on the performances of the S + N SC receivers are examined.