An improved time diversity combining for helicopter satellite communications

Periodic blockage of the received signal due to rotor blades is one of the most important problems in helicopter satellite communications. Time diversity is a promising method in order to overcome the periodic blockage. In this paper, a novel time diversity combining scheme is proposed. It performs maximal ratio combining on the basis of the channel blockage information estimated with a pseudo bit error rate. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated by the computer simulation. The results show that the proposed scheme remarkably improves the bit error rate performance of the conventional one employing equal gain combining.