Mobile Cellular Communication

EEE 4247

Lecture – 9
Diversity Techniques

Sarah Cynthia Gomes

Lecturer
Department of EEE
University of Dhaka
Diversity Techniques

• Space Diversity

• Antenna Polarization Diversity

• Frequency Diversity

• Time Diversity
Space Diversity: Feedback/Scanning
Diversity
Principle:
Scanning all the signals in a fixed sequence until the one with more SNR than a predefined threshold is identified.

Consider M independent Rayleigh fading channels

available at receiver.

Operation:
• the signal received at an antenna is scanned
and a processor does a short term average of it.
• the average of the signal is compared with a
predefined threshold.

• if the signal SNR meets the threshold demand,

the signal is received.

• the signal gets received until the SNR drops Block diagram of scanning diversity
below the threshold. Then the scanner switches
to another antenna and compares its SNR again
with the threshold.
Space Diversity: Feedback/Scanning
Diversity

• The method is very simple to implement

requiring only one receiver.

• The outcome of this technique is somewhat

inferior to those obtained by other methods.

• Time consuming technique.

Block diagram of scanning diversity

Space Diversity: Maximal Ratio
Combining (MRC)
Principle:
Combining all the signals in a co-phased and weighted manner so as to have the highest achievable SNR at
the receiver at all times.
Consider m independent Rayleigh fading channels available at receiver.
Operation:
• voltage of each branch, is weighted and then
combined in a co-phased manner.
Importance of co-phasing: it provides coherent
addition of voltages because all the branches might
have signals with various phase conditions as they
have travelled different paths.
• Each branch has a gain, and a noise power, N.
• the detector takes the combined SNR and allows
the adaptive control to update the weights of Block diagram of MRC
each branch based on their individual SNR.

MRC leads to the best statistical reduction of fading because it ensures that the summation of all the SNRs
will be beyond the threshold, even if the signal from a certain is below threshold.
Space Diversity: Maximal Ratio
Combining (MRC)
• Combined received signal applied to the detector

• Assuming that all amplifiers have additive noise at their input and that the noise is uncorrelated
between different amplifiers. The total noise power applied to the detector is the weighted
sum of the noise in each branch.

• Which results in a SNR applied to the detector

• is maximized when gain in each branch is updated as-

Space Diversity: Maximal Ratio
Combining (MRC)
• The maximized value is-

• The resulting pdf of is-

• The probability that is less than some SNR threshold γ is-

Space Diversity: Maximal Ratio
Combining (MRC)

MRS produces an output with

acceptable or greater SNR, even
when none of the individual
signals are themselves acceptable.

• The points at which the received

signals of individual branches
Deep fade undergo deep fading, the
corresponding combined signal by
MRC is much higher than the
individual signals  Less fading 
Greater SNR
Space Diversity: Equal Gain Combining
(EGC)
Principle:
Combining all the signals in a co‐phased manner with unity weights for all signal levels so as to have the
highest achievable SNR at the receiver at all times.
1 2 M

• In certain cases it is not convenient to provide for

the variable weighting capability.
G G G
• This allows the receiver to exploit signals that are
simultaneously received on each branch.
Co-phasing and Summing
• The probability of producing an acceptable signal
from a number of unacceptable inputs is still
retained.
• The performance is marginally inferior to maximal Demodulation and
Detection
ratio combining and superior to selection diversity

Output

Block diagram of EGC

Diversity Techniques

• Space Diversity

• Antenna Polarization Diversity

• Frequency Diversity

• Time Diversity
Antenna Polarization Diversity
Principle:
Polarization diversity relies on the decorrelation of the two receive ports to achieve diversity gain. The
two receiver ports must remain cross-polarized.

Concept of Co and Cross Polarziation

1. Antennas with same polarization

Tx Rx Tx Rx
Vertical polarization Horizontal polarization

Here, orientation of Tx = orientation of E-fields = orientation of Rx  received signal will have maximum strength

Co-polarization
Antenna Polarization Diversity
Concept of Co and Cross Polarziation

2. Antennas with different polarization

Tx Rx Tx Rx
Vertical polarization Horizontal polarization

Here, orientation of Tx is orthogonal to the orientation of Rx  received signal has minimum strength
Cross polarization
Antenna Polarization Diversity
Effective Diversity is obtained with a Correlation Coefficient below 0.7.
In order to keep the correlation at this level:
• Space diversity at a base station requires antenna spacing of up to 20 wavelengths for the broadside
case, and even more for the inline case.
• Polarization diversity at a base station does not require antenna spacing.

In the early days of cellular radio, all subscriber units were mounted in vehicles or used vertical whip
antennas. Today, however, the subscriber units are portable. This means that most subscribers are no
longer just using vertical polarization due to hand‐tilting when the portable cellular phone is used. This
recent phenomenon has sparkled interest in polarization diversity at the base station.

Some of the vertically polarized signals transmitted from the mobile station are converted to the
horizontally polarized signals, because of various reflections and scatterings of multipath propagation.
Diversity Techniques

• Space Diversity

• Antenna Polarization Diversity

• Frequency Diversity

• Time Diversity
Frequency Diversity
Principle:
The same information signal is transmitted and received simultaneously on two or more independent fading
carrier frequencies.
.
• The rational behind this technique is that frequencies separated by more than the coherence bandwidth of
the channel will not experience the same fade.

• The probability of simultaneous fade will be the product of the individual fading probabilities.

• Output signal at the receiving end can be chosen by selection or combining techniques.

• This technique not only requires spare bandwidth, but also requires that there be as many receivers as there
are channels used for the frequency diversity. However, for critical traffic, the expense may be justified.
Diversity Techniques

• Space Diversity

• Antenna Polarization Diversity

• Frequency Diversity

• Time Diversity
Time Diversity
Principle:
The signals representing the same information are sent over the same channel at different times.

• Time Diversity repeatedly transmits information at time spacing that exceeds the coherence time of the
channel.
• Multiple repetitions of the signal will be received with multiple fading conditions, thereby providing for
diversity.
• A modern implementation of time diversity involves the use of RAKE receiver for spread spectrum CDMA,
where multipath channel provides redundancy in the transmitted message.
Thank You!