Wideband DS/CDMA signals in multipath fading channels: analysis, simulation and measurements

For narrowband signals the envelope of the received signal is well characterised by a Rayleigh random process. Rayleigh fading causes large variations in the signal envelope. For wideband signals, the effect of Rayleigh fading is mitigated. This paper considers the effect of receiver processing on the mitigation effect for wideband DS/CDMA signals. The mitigation effect is shown here by a reduction of the coefficient of variation of the received power as a function of bandwidth spreading. The parameters chip rate, processing gain and the number of multipath components tracked are investigated for their effect upon the mitigation-the mitigation effect is sensitive to combinations of these parameters