Statistical characteristics of the envelope in diversity combining of two correlated Rayleigh fading channels

Performance of diversity systems is often evaluated under the assumption of perfect interleaving and characterised in terms of long-term parameters such as the average bit-error rate, which does not capture the dynamics of fading channels. Statistical characteristics (static and dynamic) of the envelope of two correlated Rayleigh fading channels are explored using a physical model. For two popular diversity-combining schemes, maximal ratio combining and selection combining, both static and dynamic (level-crossing rate) properties of correlated fading channels are derived. These results are very useful for performance evaluation of diversity systems without bit-level simulations. The results can also provide very useful characteristics such as average duration of fades, fading rate and outage probability for two-channel diversity systems and can be extended to multiple fading channels