UNIT-III

Equalization: Fundamentals of equalization, Training a generic

adaptive equalizer, Equalizers in a communication receiver, survey
of equalization techniques, Linear equalizers, Nonlinear
equalization, Decision feedback equalization (DFE), Maximum
likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) equalizer.

Diversity Techniques: Practical space diversity considerations:

Selection diversity, feedback or scanning diversity, maximum ratio
combining (MRC), equal gain combining (EGC), Polarization
diversity, Frequency diversity, Time diversity, Rake receiver.
Source: Theodore S. Rappaport, Wireless Communications Principles and Practice, 2nd Edition, Pearson Education, 2003.
W.C.Y. Lee, Mobile Cellular Communications, 2nd Edition, Mc-Graw Hill, 1995
G Sasibhusan Rao, Mobile Cellular Communications, Pearson Education, 2013.
1. Introduction

• The mobile radio channel is particularly dynamic due to multipath fading

and Doppler spread.
• Multipath fading -> time dispersion, ISI
• Doppler spread -> dynamical fluctuation
These effects have a strong negative impact on the bit error rate of any
modulation.
• Mobile radio channel impairments cause the signal at the receiver to
distort or fade significantly.
• Mobile communication systems require signal processing techniques
that improve the link performance in hostile mobile radio environments.
• Equalization, diversity, and channel coding are three techniques which
can be used independently or in jointly to improve received signal quality.
(i) Equalization
(ii) Diversity
• Diversity is used to compensate for fading channel impairments,
and is usually implemented by using two or more receiving
antennas.
• The most common diversity technique is called spatial diversity,
whereby multiple antennas are strategically spaced and connected
to a common receiving system.
2. Fundamentals of Equalization

• Since the mobile fading channel is random and time varying

equalizers must track the time varying characteristics of the mobile
channel, and thus are called adaptive equalizers.
Operating modes of an adaptive equalizer
• The general operating modes of an adaptive equalizer include
training and tracking.
Fig. Simplified communications system using an adaptive equalizer at the receiver.
• Equalizer can be implemented at baseband or at IF in a receiver.

• If 𝑥 𝑡 is the original information signal, and 𝑓 𝑡 is the combined

complex baseband impulse response of the transmitter, channel, and
the RF/IF sections of the receiver.

• Then the signal received by the equalizer may be expressed as:

𝑦 𝑡 = 𝑥 𝑡 ⨂ 𝑓 ∗ 𝑡 + 𝑛𝑏 𝑡
• If the impulse response of the equalizer is ℎ𝑒𝑞 𝑡 then the output of
the equalizer is: 𝑑መ 𝑡 = 𝑦 𝑡 ⨂ ℎ𝑒𝑞 𝑡
𝑑መ 𝑡 = 𝑥 𝑡 ⨂ 𝑓 ∗ 𝑡 ⨂ ℎ𝑒𝑞 𝑡 + 𝑛𝑏 𝑡 ⨂ ℎ𝑒𝑞 𝑡

= 𝑥 𝑡 ⨂ 𝑔(𝑡) + 𝑛𝑏 𝑡 ⨂ ℎ𝑒𝑞 𝑡
where
𝑔 𝑡 = 𝑓 ∗ 𝑡 ⨂ ℎ𝑒𝑞 𝑡 : is the combined impulse response of the
transmitter, channel, RF/IF sections of the receiver, and the
equalizer.
• The complex baseband impulse response of a transversal filter
equalizer is given by

ℎ𝑒𝑞 𝑡 = ෍ 𝑐𝑛 𝛿 𝑡 − 𝑛𝑇 where 𝑐𝑛 are the complex filter

𝑛
coefficients of the equalizer.
• The desired output of the equalizer is original source data 𝑥 𝑡 .

• Assume that 𝑛𝑏 𝑡 = 0. Then, in order to force 𝑑መ 𝑡 = 𝑥 𝑡 , the

𝑔 𝑡 must be equal to:
The goal of equalization is to
𝑔 𝑡 = 𝑓 ∗ 𝑡 ⨂ ℎ𝑒𝑞 𝑡 = 𝛿 𝑡 satisfy this equation

• In the frequency domain, the above equation can be expressed as

This indicates that an equalizer
𝐻𝑒𝑞 𝑓 𝐹 ∗ −𝑓 = 1 is actually an inverse filter of the
channel.

where 𝐻𝑒𝑞 𝑓 and 𝐹 𝑓 are Fourier transforms of ℎ𝑒𝑞 𝑡 and 𝑓 𝑡 ,

respectively.
• If the channel is frequency selective, the equalizer enhances the
frequency components with small amplitudes and attenuates the
strong frequencies in the received frequency spectrum in order to
provide a flat, composite, received frequency response and linear
phase response.

• For a time-varying channel, an adaptive equalizer is designed to

track the channel variations so that equation 𝐻𝑒𝑞 𝑓 𝐹 ∗ −𝑓 = 1 is
approximately satisfied.
3. A Generic Adaptive Equalizer

Figure: A basic linear equalizer during training.

• An adaptive equalizer is a time-varying filter which must constantly be retuned.
• In Figure there is a single input 𝑦𝑘 at any time instant. The value of 𝑦𝑘 depends
upon the instantaneous state of the radio channel and the specific value of the
noise. So, 𝑦𝑘 is a random process.
• The adaptive equalizer structure shown above is called a transversal filter.
• The least mean squares (LMS) algorithm searches for the optimum or near-optimum filter
weights by performing the following iterative operation:

New weights = Previous weights + (constant) x (Previous error) x (Current input vector)

where
Previous error = Previous desired output - Previous actual output

• The constant may be adjusted by the algorithm to control the variation between filter
weights on successive iterations.

• This process is repeated rapidly in a programming loop while the equalizer attempts to
converge.

• Upon reaching convergence, the adaptive algorithm freezes the filter weights until the
error signal exceeds an acceptable level or until a new training sequence is sent.
• The input signal to the equalizer is a vector 𝑦𝑘 which is given by

𝑇
𝒚𝑘 = 𝑦𝑘 𝑦𝑘−1 𝑦𝑘−2 . . . 𝑦𝑘−𝑁 (1)

• The output of the adaptive equalizer is a scalar given by

𝑁

𝑑መ𝑘 = ෍ 𝑤𝑛𝑘 𝑦𝑘−𝑛 (2)

𝑛=0
• A weight vector can be written as

𝒘𝑘 = 𝑤0𝑘 𝑤1𝑘 𝑤2𝑘 . . . 𝑤𝑁𝑘 𝑇 (3)

• Using (1) and (3), (2) may be written in vector notation as

𝑑መ𝑘 = 𝒚𝑇𝑘 𝒘𝑘 = 𝒘𝑇𝑘 𝒚𝑘 (4)

• It follows that when the desired equalizer output is known (i.e., 𝑑𝑘 = 𝑥𝑘), the
error signal 𝑒𝑘 is given by

𝑒𝑘 = 𝑑𝑘 − 𝑑መ𝑘 = 𝑥𝑘 − 𝑑መ𝑘 (5)

and from (4)

𝑒𝑘 = 𝑥𝑘 − 𝒚𝑇𝑘 𝒘𝑘 = 𝑥𝑘 − 𝒘𝑇𝑘 𝒚𝑘 (6)

• The mean square error 𝑒𝑘 2 at time instant k is given by

𝑒𝑘 2 = 𝑥𝑘2 + 𝒘𝑇𝑘 𝒚𝑘 𝒚𝑇𝑘 𝒘𝑘 − 2𝑥𝑘 𝒚𝑇𝑘 𝒘𝑘 (7)

• Taking the expected value of 𝑒𝑘 2 over k yields

𝑬 𝑒𝑘 2
= 𝑬[𝑥𝑘2 ] + 𝒘𝑇𝑘 𝑬[𝒚𝑘 𝒚𝑇𝑘 ] 𝒘𝑘 − 2𝑬[𝑥𝑘 𝒚𝑇𝑘 ] 𝒘𝑘 (8)
• The cross-correlation vector p between the desired response and the input
signal is defined as
𝒑 = 𝑬 𝑥𝑘 𝒚𝑘 = 𝑬[𝑥𝑘 𝑦𝑘 𝑥𝑘 𝑦𝑘−1 𝑥𝑘 𝑦𝑘−2 . . . 𝑥𝑘 𝑦𝑘−𝑁 ]𝑇 (9)

• The input correlation matrix is defined as the (N+1) x (N+1) square matrix R
where
𝑦𝑘2 𝑦𝑘 𝑦𝑘−1 𝑦𝑘 𝑦𝑘−2 … 𝑦𝑘 𝑦𝑘−𝑁

𝑦𝑘−1 𝑦𝑘
2
𝑦𝑘−1 𝑦𝑘−1 𝑦𝑘−2 … 𝑦𝑘−1 𝑦𝑘−𝑁
𝑹 = 𝑬 𝑥𝑘 𝒚∗𝑘 = (10)
… … … … …

𝑦𝑘−𝑁 𝑦𝑘 𝑦𝑘−𝑁 𝑦𝑘−1 𝑦𝑘−𝑁 𝑦𝑘−2 … 2

𝑦𝑘−𝑁

• The matrix R is sometimes called the input covariance matrix.

• The major diagonal of R contains the mean square values of each input sample,
and the cross terms specify the autocorrelation terms resulting from delayed
samples of the input signal.
• If 𝑥𝑘 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝒚𝑘 are stationary, then the elements in R and p are second order
statistics which do not vary with time. Using equations (9) and (10), (8) may
be rewritten as

𝑴𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝑺𝒒𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝑬𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒓 = 𝝃 = 𝑬 𝑥𝑘2 + 𝒘𝑇 𝑹𝒘 − 𝟐𝒑𝑇 𝒘 (11)

• By minimizing 𝑴𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝑺𝒒𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝑬𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒓(𝝃) in terms of the weight vector 𝒘𝑘 , it

becomes possible to adaptively tune the equalizer to provide a flat spectral
response (minimal ISI) in the received signal.
4. Equalizers in a Communications Receiver
𝑦 𝑡 = 𝑥 𝑡 ⨂ 𝑓 ∗ 𝑡 + 𝑛𝑏 𝑡
• Since the received signal 𝑦 𝑡 includes channel noise 𝑛𝑏 𝑡 , an equalizer is unable
to achieve perfect performance.
• Thus, there is always some residual ISI and some small tracking error.
• Therefore, the instantaneous combined frequency response will not always be flat,
resulting in some finite prediction error.

• Because adaptive equalizers are implemented using digital logic, it is most

convenient to represent all time signals in discrete form.
• Let T represent some increment of time between successive observations of
signal states.
• Letting t = 𝑡𝑛 =nT, where n is an integer.
• The output of the equalizer 𝑑መ 𝑡 can be represented in discrete form as
𝑑መ 𝑡 = 𝑥 𝑡 ⨂ 𝑔(𝑡) + 𝑛𝑏 𝑡 ⨂ ℎ𝑒𝑞 𝑡

𝑑መ 𝑛 = 𝑥 𝑛 ⨂ 𝑔(𝑛) + 𝑛𝑏 𝑛 ⨂ ℎ𝑒𝑞 𝑛
• The prediction error 𝑒 𝑛 is

𝑒 𝑛 = 𝑑 𝑛 − 𝑑መ 𝑛 = 𝑑 𝑛 − [𝑥 𝑛 ⨂ 𝑔(𝑛) + 𝑛𝑏 𝑛 ⨂ ℎ𝑒𝑞 𝑛 ]

• The mean square error 𝑒𝑘 2 is one of the most important measures of how well
an equalizer works.
• Minimizing the mean square error tends to reduce the bit error rate.

• For wireless communication links, it would be best to minimize the instantaneous

probability of error 𝑷𝑒 instead of MSE.

• But minimizing 𝑷𝑒 generally results in nonlinear equations much more difficult to

solve in real-time.
5. Survey of Equalization Techniques
• The most common equalizer structure is a linear transversal equalizer
(LTE).

• A linear transversal filter is made up of tapped delay lines, with the tappings
spaced a symbol period (Ts) apart, as shown in below Figure.

• Assuming that the delay elements have unity gain and delay Ts.

• The transfer function of a linear transversal equalizer can be written as a

function of the delay operator 𝑒𝑥𝑝(−𝑗𝑤𝑇𝑠) or 𝑧 −1

Fig. Basic linear transversal equalizer structure

Types of LTE structures:

1. finite impulse response (FIR) filter or transversal filter:

• The equalizer uses only feedforward taps, and
• Its transfer function of the equalizer filter is a polynomial in 𝑧 −1.
• This filter has many zeroes but poles only at z = 0.

2. Infinite impulse response (FIR) filter or tapped delay line filter:

• The equalizer has both feedforward and feedback taps,
• Its transfer function is a rational function of 𝑧 −1 ,
• It has both poles and zeros.
• Since IIR filters tend to be unstable when used in channels
where the strongest pulse arrives after an echo pulse (i.e.,
leading echoes), they are rarely used.
Figure: Tapped delay line filter with both feedforward and feedback taps (IIR)
6. Linear Equalizers
• A linear equalizer can be implemented as an FIR filter or transversal filter.
• This type of equalizer is the simplest type available.
• In this equalizer, the current and past values of the received signal are linearly
weighted by the filter coefficient and summed to produce the output.

Figure:
Structure of a
linear transversal
equalizer.
• If the delays and the tap gains are analog, the continuous output of the
equalizer is sampled at the symbol rate and the samples are applied to the
decision device.
• Implementation is usually carried out in the digital domain where the
samples of the received signal are stored in a shift register.
• The output of this transversal filter before decision making (threshold
detection) is:
𝑁2

𝑑መ𝑘 = ෍ 𝑐𝑛 ∗ 𝑦𝑘−𝑛
𝑛=−𝑁1
where
𝑐𝑛 ∗ is the complex filter coefficients or tap weights,
𝑑መ𝑘 is the output at time index k,
𝑦𝑖 is the input received signal at time 𝑡𝑜 + 𝑖𝑇
𝑡𝑜 is the equalizer starting time
𝑁 = 𝑁1 + 𝑁2 + 1 is the number of taps
𝑁1 the number of taps used in the forward path of the equalizer
𝑁2 the number of taps used in the reverse path of the equalizer
 2
• The minimum mean squared error 𝐸 𝑒 𝑛 that a linear transversal
equalizer can achieve is:

𝜋Τ𝑇
2 𝑇 𝑁𝑜
𝐸 𝑒 𝑛 = න 𝑗𝑤𝑇 2 𝑑𝑤
2𝜋 𝐹 𝑒 + 𝑁𝑜
−𝜋Τ𝑇

where
𝐹 𝑒 𝑗𝑤𝑇 is the frequency response of the channel
𝑁𝑜 is the noise spectral density.
• The linear equalizer can also be implemented as a lattice filter,

Figure:
The structure of a
lattice equalizer
• The input signal 𝑦𝑘 is transformed into a set of N intermediate forward and
backward error signals, 𝑓𝑛 (𝑘) and 𝑏𝑛 (𝑘) respectively, which are used as
inputs to the tap multipliers and are used to calculate the updated
coefficients.
• Each stage of the lattice is then characterized by the following recursive
equations

𝑓1 𝑘 = 𝑏1 𝑘 = 𝑦 𝑘
𝑛

𝑓𝑛 𝑘 = 𝑦 𝑘 − ෍ 𝐾𝑖 𝑦 𝑘 − 𝑖 = 𝑓𝑛−1 𝑘 + 𝐾𝑛−1 𝑘 𝑏𝑛−1 𝑘 − 1

𝑖=1
𝑛

𝑏𝑛 𝑘 = 𝑦 𝑘 − 𝑛 − ෍ 𝐾𝑖 𝑦 𝑘 − 𝑛 + 𝑖
𝑖=1
= 𝑏𝑛−1 𝑘 − 1 + 𝐾𝑛−1 𝑘 𝑓𝑛−1 𝑘
where 𝐾𝑛 𝑘 is the reflection coefficient for the nth stage of the lattice.
• The backward error signals 𝑏𝑛 , are then used as inputs to the tap weights,
and the output of the equalizer is given by
𝑁

𝑑መ𝑛 = ෍ 𝑐𝑛 𝑘 𝑏𝑛 𝑘
𝑛=1

• Advantages of the lattice equalizer:

• numerical stability
• faster convergence

• Disadvantages of the lattice equalizer:

• When the channel becomes more time dispersive, the length of the
equalizer can be increased by the algorithm without stopping the
operation of the equalizer.
• More complicated than a linear transversal equalizer.
7. Nonlinear Equalization

• Linear equalizers do not perform well on channels which have deep spectral
nulls in the passband.

• Nonlinear equalizers are used in applications where the channel distortion is

too severe.

• Three very effective nonlinear equalizers:

• Decision Feedback Equalization (DFE)
• Maximum Likelihood Symbol Detection
• Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimation (MLSE)
7.1. Decision Feedback Equalization (DFE)

• Basic idea:
Once an information symbol has been detected, the ISI that it induces
on future symbols can be estimated and subtracted out before
detection of subsequent symbols.
• DFE Can be realized in either the direct transversal form or as a lattice
filter.
• The direct form consists of a feedforward filter (FFF) and a feedback
filter (FBF).

• The FBF is driven by decisions on the output of the detector, and its
coefficients can be adjusted to cancel the ISI on the current symbol from
past detected symbols.

• The equalizer has 𝑁1 + 𝑁2 + 1 taps in the feed forward filter and 𝑁3 taps
in the feedback filter.
Figure:
Decision feedback equalizer (DFE).
• The equalizer output can be expressed as:
𝑁2 𝑁3

𝑑መ𝑘 = ෍ 𝑐𝑛 ∗ 𝑦𝑘−𝑛 + ෍ 𝐹𝑖 𝑑𝑘−𝑖

𝑛=−𝑁1 𝑖=1
where
𝑐𝑛 ∗ are the tap gains to the forward filter
𝑦𝑛 are the inputs to the forward filter
𝑓𝑖 ∗ are tap gains for the feedback filter
𝑑𝑖 (𝑖 < 𝑘) is the previous decision made on the detected signal.

• That is, once 𝑑መ𝑘 is obtained using above equation, 𝑑𝑘 is decided from it.

• Then, 𝑑𝑘 along with previous decisions 𝑑𝑘−1 , 𝑑𝑘−2 , … . are fed back into the
equalizer, and 𝑑መ𝑘+1 is obtained using above equation.
• The minimum mean squared error that a DFE can achieve is:
𝜋Τ𝑇
2
𝑇 𝑁𝑜
𝐸 𝑒 𝑛 𝑚𝑖𝑛 = 𝑒𝑥𝑝 න 𝑙𝑛 𝑗𝑤𝑇 2 𝑑𝑤
2𝜋 𝐹 𝑒 + 𝑁𝑜
−𝜋Τ𝑇
• It can be seen that the minimum MSE for a DFE is always smaller than that
of an LTE.

• An LTE is well behaved when the channel spectrum is comparatively flat.

• If the channel is severely distorted or exhibits nulls in the spectrum, the

performance of an LTE deteriorates and the mean squared error of a DFE
is much better than an LTE.

• So, a DFE is more appropriate for severely distorted wireless

channels.
• The lattice implementation of the DFE is equivalent to a transversal DFE
having a feed forward filter of length 𝑁1 and a feedback filter of length 𝑁2,
where 𝑁1 > 𝑁2.
• Another form of DFE is called a predictive DFE.

Figure:
Predictive decision
feedback equalizer
• It consists of a feedforward filter (FFF) as in the conventional DFE.

• However, the feedback filter (FBF) is driven by an input sequence formed by

the difference of the output of the detector and the output of the feed forward
filter.

• Hence, the FBF here is called a noise predictor because it predicts the noise
and the residual ISI contained in the signal at the FFF output and subtracts
from it the detector output after some feedback delay.

• The FBF in the predictive DFE can also be realized as a lattice structure.

• The RLS lattice algorithm can be used in this case to yield fast convergence.
7.2 Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimation (MLSE) equalizer

• MLSE tests all possible data sequences (rather than decoding each
received symbol by itself) and chooses the data sequence with the
maximum probability as the output.

• MLSE uses various forms of the classical maximum likelihood receiver

structure.

• First proposed by Forney using a basic MLSE estimator structure and

implementing it with the Viterbi algorithm

• Drawback: MLSE usually has a large computational requirement

especially when the delay spread of the channel is large.
Figure: The structure of a maximum likelihood sequence equalizer(MLSE) with an adaptive
matched filter

• MLSE requires knowledge of the channel characteristics in order to compute the

matrics for making decisions.
• MLSE also requires knowledge of the statistical distribution of the noise
corrupting the signal.
 Part-II
Diversity Techniques
1. Introduction to Diversity Techniques
• Diversity is a powerful communication receiver technique that provides
wireless link improvement at relatively low cost.

• Unlike equalization, diversity requires no training overhead since a

training sequence is not required by the transmitter.

• Diversity exploits (achieves) the random nature of radio propagation by

finding independent signal paths for communication so as to boost the
instantaneous SNR at the receiver.

• So, in diversity receivers, If one radio path undergoes a deep fade,

another independent path may have a strong signal.
Two types of diversity:
I. Microscopic diversity for mitigating small scale fading
II. Macroscopic diversity for mitigating large scale fading
I. Microscopic diversity:

• Small-scale fades represents deep and rapid amplitude fluctuations over

distances of just a few wavelengths.
• These fades are caused by multiple reflections from the surroundings in the
vicinity of the mobile.
• These fades results in a Rayleigh fading distribution of signal strength over
small distances.

• Microscopic diversity techniques can exploit the rapidly changing signal.

• For example, use two antennas at the receiver (separated by a fraction of
a meter), one may receive a null while the other receives a strong signal.
• So, by selecting the best signal at all times, a receiver can mitigate small-
scale fading effects. This is called antenna diversity or space diversity.
• Examples: Rake receiver, MIMO transmission
II. Macroscopic diversity:

• Large-scale fading is caused by shadowing due to variations in both the

terrain profile and the nature of the surroundings.

• In deeply shadowed conditions, the received signal strength at a mobile

can drop well below that of free space.

• Large-scale fading can be represented with log-normally distributed with

a standard deviation of about 10 dB in urban environments.

• By selecting a base station which is not shadowed, the mobile can

improve substantially the average SNR ratio on the forward link. This is
called Macroscopic diversity.
• Macroscopic diversity is also useful at the base station receiver.

• By using base station antennas that are sufficiently separated in space, the
base station is able to improve the reverse link by selecting the antenna
with the strongest signal from the mobile.
2. Practical space diversity considerations
• In urban and indoor environments, there is no clear line-of-sight (LOS)
between transmitter and receiver.

• So, the signal is reflected along multiple paths before finally being
received.

• Each of these reflected signals can introduce phase shifts, time delays,
attenuations, and distortions that can destructively interfere with one
another at the aperture of the receiving antenna.

• Antenna diversity is especially effective at mitigating

these multipath situations.
• Antenna diversity, also known as space diversity or spatial diversity, is
any one of several wireless diversity schemes that uses two or more
antennas to improve the quality and reliability of a wireless link.

• Space diversity (also known as antenna diversity), is one of the most

popular forms of diversity used in wireless systems.

• The signals received from spatially separated antennas on the mobile

would have essentially uncorrelated envelopes for antenna separations
of one-half wavelength or more.

• Space diversity can be used at either the mobile or base station, or both.
 Fig. Generalized block diagram for space diversity

• Space diversity reception methods can be classified into four categories:

i. Selection diversity
ii. Feedback diversity
iii. Maximal ratio combining
iv. Equal gain diversity
i. Selection Diversity:
• The simplest diversity technique.
• The receiver branch having the highest
instantaneous SNR is connected to the
demodulator.
• The antenna signals themselves could be
sampled and the best one sent to a single
demodulator.
• In practice, the branch with the largest (S +
N) /N is used, since it is difficult to measure
SNR.
ii. Feedback or Scanning Diversity:
• In this diversity, the M signals are scanned in
a fixed sequence until one is found to be
above a predetermined threshold.
• This signal is then received until it falls below
threshold and the scanning process is again
initiated.
 iii. Maximal Ratio Combining:
• The signals from all of the M branches
are weighted according to their individual
signal voltage to noise power ratios and
then summed.
• The individual signals must be co-phased
before being summed which requires an
individual receiver and phasing circuit for
each antenna element.

iv. Equal Gain Combining:

• In this method, the branch weights are all
set to unity but the signals from each
branch are co-phased to provide equal
gain combining diversity.
• This allows the receiver to exploit signals
that are simultaneously received on each
branch.
3. Polarization Diversity
• At the base station, spatial diversity is less practical than at the mobile.

• Polarization diversity only provides two diversity branches it does allow

the antenna elements to be co-located.

• The decorrelation for the signals in each polarization is caused by

multiple reflections in the channel between the mobile and base
station antennas.

• Multiple versions of a signal are transmitted and received via antennas

with different polarization.

• A diversity combining technique is applied on the receiver side.

Theoretical Model for Polarization Diversity:
• It is assumed that the signal is transmitted
from a mobile with vertical (or horizontal)
polarization.
• It is received at the base station by a
polarization diversity antenna with 2
branches.
• As seen in the figure, a polarization diversity
antenna is composed of two antenna
elements 𝑉1 and 𝑉2 , which make a±α angle
(polarization angle) with the Y axis.
• A mobile station is in the direction of offset
angle β from the main beam direction of the
diversity antenna.
• Some of the vertically polarized signals transmitted are converted to the
horizontal polarized signal because of multipath propagation.
• The signal arriving at the base station can be expressed as

where x and y are signal levels which are received when β=0.
• The received signal values at elements 𝑉1 and 𝑉2 can be written as:

𝑉1 = 𝑟1 𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑠∅1 + 𝑟2 𝑏 𝑐𝑜𝑠∅2 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑤𝑡 − 𝑟1 𝑎 𝑠𝑖𝑛∅1 + 𝑟2 𝑏 𝑠𝑖𝑛∅2 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑤𝑡

𝑉2 = −𝑟1 𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑠∅1 + 𝑟2 𝑏 𝑐𝑜𝑠∅2 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑤𝑡 − −𝑟1 𝑎 𝑠𝑖𝑛∅1 + 𝑟2 𝑏 𝑠𝑖𝑛∅2 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑤𝑡

where 𝑎 = 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝛼 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝛽

𝑏 = 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝛼
• The correlation coefficient p can be written as

where
Here 𝚪 is the cross-polarization
discrimination of the propagation path
between a mobile and a base station.

where
• The correlation coefficient p is determined by three factors:
• Polarization angle α;
• Offset angle 𝜷 from the main beam direction of the diversity antenna
• The cross-polarization discrimination 𝚪.
• The correlation coefficient p generally becomes higher as offset angle 𝜷
becomes larger.
• Also, p generally becomes lower as polarization angle α increases. This is
because the horizontal polarization component becomes larger as α
increases.
• Because antenna elements 𝑉1 and 𝑉2 are polarized at ±α to the vertical, the
received signal level is lower than that received by a vertically polarized
antenna.
• The average value of signal loss 𝐿 , relative to that received using vertical
polarization is given by
𝐿 = 𝑎 2Τ Γ + 𝑏 2
4. Frequency diversity

• Frequency diversity transmits information on more than one carrier

frequency.

• Frequencies separated by more than the coherence bandwidth of the

channel will not experience the same fads.

• Frequency diversity is employed in microwave line-of-sight links which

carry several channels in a frequency division multiplex mode (FDM).

• Due to tropospheric propagation and resulting refraction, deep fading

sometimes occurs.
5. Time diversity
• Time diversity repeatedly transmits information at time spacings that
exceed the coherence time of the channel.

• So that multiple repetitions of the signal will be received with

independent fading conditions, thereby providing for diversity.

• One modem implementation of time diversity involves the use of the

RAKE receiver for spread spectrum CDMA, where the multipath
channel provides redundancy in the transmitted message.
6. RAKE Receiver
• In CDMA spread spectrum systems, the chip rate is typically much greater than
the flat fading bandwidth of the channel.

• CDMA spreading codes are designed to provide very low correlation (in general
correlation is not good) between successive chips purposefully.

• Thus, propagation delay spread in the radio channel merely provides multiple
versions of the transmitted signal at the receiver.

• If these multipath components are delayed in time by more than a chip

duration, they appear like uncorrelated noise at a CDMA receiver, and
equalization is not required.

• Since there is useful information in the multipath components, CDMA receivers

may combine the time delayed versions of the original signal transmission in
order to improve the signal to noise ratio at the receiver.
• A RAKE receiver does just this - it attempts to collect the time-shifted versions
of the original signal by providing a separate correlation receiver for each of
the multipath signals.

Fig. An M-branch (M-finger) RAKE receiver implementation. Each correlator detects a time
shifted version of the original CDMA transmission, and each finger of the RAKE correlates to a
portion of the signal which is delayed by at least one chip in time from the other fingers.
• The RAKE receiver is essentially a diversity receiver designed specifically
for CDMA, where the diversity is provided by the multipath components
are practically uncorrelated from one another when their relative
propagation delays exceed a chip period.

• A RAKE receiver utilizes multiple correlators to separately detect the M

strongest multipath components.

• The outputs of each correlator are weighted to provide a better estimate

of the transmitted signal than is provided by a single component.

• Demodulation and bit decisions are then based on the weighted outputs
of the M correlators.
• Assume M correlators are used in a CDMA receiver to capture the M strongest
multipath components.

• A weighting network is used to provide a linear combination of the correlator

output for bit detection.

• Correlator 1 is synchronized to the strongest multipath 𝑚1 . Multipath

component 𝑚2 arrives τ1 later than component 𝑚1 .

• The second correlator is synchronized to 𝑚2 . It correlates strongly with 𝑚2 but

has low correlation with 𝑚1 .

• In a RAKE receiver, if the output from one correlator is corrupted by fading, the
others may not be corrupted by fading, and the corrupted signal may be
discounted through the weighting process.
• Decisions based on the combination of the M separate decision statistics
offered by the RAKE provide a form of diversity which can overcome
fading and thereby improve CDMA reception.

• The outputs of the M correlators are denoted as 𝑍1 , 𝑍2 ,... and 𝑍𝑀 . They

are weighted by 𝛼1 , 𝛼2 , ... 𝛼𝑀 , respectively.

• The weighting coefficients are based on the power or the SNR from each
correlator output. If the power or SNR is small out of a particular
correlator, it will be assigned a small weighting factor.

• The overall signal 𝑍 ′ is given by

𝑀
𝑍𝑚 2
𝑍 ′ = ෍ 𝛼𝑚 𝑍𝑚 where 𝛼𝑚 = 2
σ𝑀
𝑚=1 𝑍𝑚
𝑚=1