Performance of trellis coded MDPSK on fast fading channels

The performance of trellis-coded multiple differential phase-shift keying (MDPSK) over fast fading channels characteristic of a mobile environment with high vehicle speeds is presented. The envelope of the fading process is modeled as a Rician distribution, with parameter K denoting the ratio of power in the specular plus direct components to that in the diffuse component. On the basis of this model, upper bounds on the bit error probability are derived, and the sensitivity of the performance to an increase in the speed of the mobile vehicle is demonstrated as a function of K. In particular, it has been observed that as K decreases, the performance degradation due to the phase variation increases. All of the results are obtained from a combination of analysis and computer simulation, the latter being used to verify the former