Irreducible Error-Rate Performance of Phase-Shift Keyed Signals over Correlated Dual-Diversity Channels

Dual-diversity reception of 1- and 2-bit per baud differentially coherent phase-shift keyed signals over correlated Rayleigh fading channels is investigated. The mechanism that produces irreducible errors is signal distortion due to multiplicative noise. No additive noise is assumed to be present. As the fading correlation coefficient approaches unity or zero, the system error probability approaches that of single or dual independent diversity, respectively. For correlation as high as 0.7, nearly the entire improvement of dual independent diversity is obtained.