Using frequency hopping spread spectrum technique to combat multipath interference in a multiaccessing environment

The purpose of this paper is to conduct performance analysis for a frequency-hopped spread spectrum multiaccess network which is subject to the threat of multipath interference. Baseband modulation is done through frequency shift keying and signal detection is accomplished by a noncoherent type receiver. The quality of a signal is affected by the channel noise, multiuser interference, and multipath interference. Performance analysis is conducted on the basis of bit error rate. Due to the sophistication of the system exact analysis is not feasible. The accuracy of approximation is checked against simulations. One major discovery Is that when signal-to-noise ratio is low, multipath interference on the contrary may help to enhance the quality of the signal. Another discovery is that when signal-to-noise ratio is high enough, multipath/multiuser interference becomes the bottleneck of performance. The effect of channel noise can be eliminated by maintaining a large signal-to-noise ratio while spread spectrum technique is employed to reduce the effect of multipath/multiuser interference