Blind diversity reception based on eigenfilter approach for mobile communications

Diversity systems are very effective for improving signal transmission performance in mobile radio communications. A blind diversity reception utilizing the eigenfilter is proposed and its principle and performance are described. First, analysis on the SNR at the diversity combiner output derives a blind diversity principle. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the problem to maximize signal-to-noise ratio with a constraint condition becomes the one to solve the eigenfilter (the eigenvector associating with the maximum eigenvalue). Power method is employed to calculate this eigenvector. Computer simulations show the eigenfilter convergence characteristics and average bit error rate performance both in static and in fading environments. The simulation demonstrates that the proposed blind diversity system is effective even in the relatively fast fading environments.