Postdetection optimal diversity combiner for DPSK differential detection

Postdetection diversity reception weights and combines all the detector outputs before symbol decision to combat the effects of multipath fading. A theoretical analysis of a postdetection optimal diversity combiner that can minimize the symbol error probability for differential phase shift keying (DPSK) differential detection in the presence of multiplicative Rayleigh fading, and co-channel interference (CCI) is presented. The effect of unequal average powers among diversity branches is taken into account. It is shown that the postdetection maximal-ratio combiner (MRC) described previously by the author is not optimal unless all branches have the same average power. It is also found that the combiner optimized for the effect of CCI (fading induced random FM noise) should weight each branch detector output in inverse proportion to the average CCI power (desired signal power). Assuming two-branch diversity, calculated BER (bit-error-rate) performance of π/4-shift QDPSK due to AWGN, CCI, and random FM is presented. In addition, the BER due to multipath channel delay spread (which is not treated in the theoretical analysis) is also computed to find the optimal combiner