DS-CDMA performance with maximum ratio combining and antenna arrays

The mobile communication channel is very hostile to a DS-CDMA signal and therefore effective techniques are needed to enhance system performance and capacity. Further, since DS-CDMA capacity and performance is limited by the uplink, ways to improve the uplink performance is needed. By implementing antenna arrays, diversity schemes or a combination of antenna arrays and diversity techniques, the uplink performance can be improved substantially. In this study we consider a single cell with a base station at the center with mobiles uniformly distributed around it. As channel model a Nakagami distributed path gain is assumed. This model was chosen for flexibility (e.g., Rayleigh and Rice channel models can be approximated) and also since empirical data suggests that path fading statistics are adequately described by this distribution. At the receiver an array of M antennas is used to discriminate between the users based on their spatial diversity. The fading process at each of the antenna elements is statistically dependent and further improvements can be realized by making use of the independent fading characteristics of the received signal. To make use of this statistical independent information, the performance of a P branch Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC) receiver is also considered. We further investigate the performance of a combination of P clusters of M antennas separated by the coherence bandwidth of the channel, thereby making use of both forms of spatial diversity. A comparison of the three schemes (antenna arrays, MRC diversity and a combination of antenna arrays and MRC diversity) under equal complexity conditions are made under multipath fading conditions. It is shown that the performance and capacity of a MRC diversity receiver outperforms the other two methods when perfect power control is assumed.