Simplified error bound analysis for M-DPSK in fading channels with diversity reception

An extremely tight upper bound symbol error probability is developed for M-DPSK over a Rician channel, incorporating the effects of AWGN, fading bandwidth and fixed Doppler shift (for the line-of-sight component). In addition, the error probability has also been determined in the above channels with the use of post-detection diversity combining. The bounds are shown to be in excellent agreement with the exact solutions produced by previous authors using numerical computation techniques for both the Rician and Rayleigh fading channels. For the case of AWGN channel, the bound is reduced to that published elsewhere in the literature. The technique is also shown to be capable of formulating the exact fading bit error probability for both binary and quaternary DPSK.