Performance of non-coherent FSK virtual MISO systems in correlated Rayleigh fading

In this paper, a virtual multiple-input single-output (VMISO) network employing non-coherent frequency shift keying (FSK) is considered. In the VMISO network, spatially separated single-antenna nodes transmit the same information cooperatively to a single receiver where the transmitted signals propagate via correlated Rayleigh fading channel. The effects of the channel correlation on the performance of the system are analyzed. Specifically, we determine the statistics of the decision variables of FSK receiver and derive the closed-form expression for the probability of symbol error. The results indicate a degradation in performance due to channel correlation. Therefore, an extra SNR margin or higher array gain is required to compensate the performance degradation because the channel correlations.