Performance analysis of a rate-adaptive dual-branch switched diversity system

In this letter, a performance analysis of a dual-branch switched diversity system operating on statistically independent and identically distributed Nakagami-m flat-fading channels is presented. An adaptive coded modulation (ACM) scheme is employed to increase the spectral efficiency of the system. The ACM scheme consists of a set of multidimensional trellis codes originally designed for additive white Gaussian noise channels, where the codes are based on quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signal constellations of varying size. The performance is evaluated by assuming perfect channel knowledge at both transmitter and receiver and instantaneous feedback of channel state information, conveyed from the receiver to the transmitter on an error-free feedback channel. The optimal switching threshold of the switched diversity combiner, maximizing the average spectral efficiency, is identified for spatially uncorrelated antenna branches.