Performance of adaptive DFE and antenna modems for wireless personal communications

Decision feedback equalization (DFE) and antenna diversity combining are two practical techniques for combating multipath fading. In this paper, we investigate the performance of diversity combining together with DFE under various numbers of antenna branches and equalization taps in a wireless communication environment with AWGN and co-channel interference (CCI). Specifically, we present extensive results demonstrating the performance and computational complexity of diversity combining together with decision feedback equalization with finite taps in quasi-stationary frequency-selective fading channels with AWGN and CCI. Our results show that using antenna diversity and DFE with joint optimization combining provides performance improvement with lower computational complexity compared to that of using a DFE alone for combating the detrimental effects of time delay spread.