The impact of noise on switching rates in dual selection combining diversity

Transients generated by the switching in selection diversity combining cause receiver “dead time” and therefore increase the system outage. For this reason, the switching rate is an important parameter in selection diversity system design. Yet, there are few published results regarding the switching rates of selection diversity combining. All published work considers noiseless diversity systems; no results for switching rates of selection diversity in systems with noise exist. The switching rates of dual selection diversity combining in Rayleigh and Rician fading are examined in a noisy environment. Analytical expressions are derived for independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) and independent and non-identically distributed (i.n.d.) fading channels. The switching rates in the presence of noise are compared to those in noise-free cases. It is seen that, in the presence of noise, the receiver filtering can greatly influence the switching rate.