The Performance of FSK in Frequency-Selective Rayleigh Fading

This paper presents measured error-rate performance of binary FSK with discriminator detection in simulated Rayleigh fading with time delay spread. Measured relations between error rate and carrier-to-noise ratio are shown for a range of time delay spreads. We have verified that the effect of time delay spread on error rate can be described by only one parameter, the ratio of the rms delay spread to the transmitted baud time. Intersymbol interference from time delay spread causes an irreducible error rate for FSK, even for infinite carrier-to-noise ratio. For 64 kbit/s binary FSK, the 2.6μs rms delay spread typical of the urban environment produces an irreducible error rate of 3 percent. The measured irreducible error rate for binary FSK with discriminator detection is proportional to the fourth power of the ratio of rms delay spread to baud time. This functional dependence is identical to that predicted analytically for FSK with incoherent matched-filter detection.