Error performance of multiple symbol differential detection of PSK signals transmitted over correlated Rayleigh fading channels

A study is made of the error performance of multiple-symbol differential detection of uncoded PSK (phase shift keying) signals transmitted over correlated flat Rayleigh fading channels. It is found that the optimal detector uses a decoding metric which is a quadratic form of Gaussian variates. By using the characteristic function/residue theorem approach, the authors are able to derive an exact expression for the pairwise error event probability for the optimal detector. Subsequently, it is found that multiple-symbol differential detection is a very effective strategy for eliminating the irreducible error floor commonly associated with conventional differential detection. It is also found that the error performances of these detectors are not very sensitive to the mismatch between the decoding metric and the channel fading statistics