Performance based on selective multipath reception

As wireless data rate requirements increase, multipath delay spread becomes an increasingly significant limitation on the performance of wireless systems. Techniques such as RAKE reception combat time dispersion by combining multipath components. Alternative implementations of RAKE receivers isolate the strongest multipath components and then shift each component to a common timing reference. The optimal timing reference in frequency-selective fading channels remains an open problem. This paper examines the impact pulse shaping and multipath delay spread on both signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and bit-error rate performance. The receiver being considered achieves symbol synchronization to the strongest multipath component. The performance when synchronization is achieved based on the first multipath component arrival is also found and used to illustrate performance differences. Multipath delay distributions used on the performance calculations are derived from indoor measurements. Pulse shapes considered in the analysis include root-raised cosine, raised cosine, and Gaussian filters. SNR losses are shown to range between 1-6 dB for bit rates of 10 Mb/s. Results show that synchronization of the receiver to the strongest multipath component gives a 1-3 dB advantage over synchronization to the first arriving multipath component.