ASYMPTOTICAL PERFORMANCE OF M-ARY AND BINARY SIGNALS OVER MULTIPATH MULTICHANNEL RAYLEIGH AND RICIAN FADING

This paper presents a general frame work for computing the asymptotic error probability (i.e., at high average SNR's) of M-ary and binary signaling schemes over Rician and Rayleigh fading diversity channels. A general theorem (Theorem 1) relates the asymptotic error rate of multipath and multichannel receivers (over AWGN, ISI free channels) to the multi-dimensional integral of the conditional error probability. Two other theorems are presented for the particular cases where the conditional error probability is a function of the sum of received SNR's (Theorem 2) or received amplitudes (Theorem 3). Theorems 2 and 3 are related for linear coherent systems, and closed form expressions are obtained for equal gain combining systems. Detection structures for typical diversity schemes (coherent/noncoherent maximal ratio and equal gain combining, and quadratic noncoherent combining) are considered, We analyze the asymptotic error rates of some M-ary signaling schemes (MPSK/MPAM with Kth order diversity and orthogonal signals with K = 1 and with coherent and noncoherent detection). Binary signaling is also considered in our study.