Fading Mitigation in Wireless Communication using Conventional Diversity Combining Schemes: A Comparative Study

Wireless communication demands high data rates with great quality and accuracy but such requirements can only be achieved if the signal could be received without being affected by the channel impairments. In these entire impairments multipath fading is the major problem in achieving reliable wireless transmission. It is due to the combination of constructive and destructive multipath signals received at the receiver with random attenuation and delay. The diversity combining schemes are applied to combine the multiple received signals of a diversity reception device into a single improved signal. These schemes are applied at the receiver end to mitigate the effect of channel fading on the received signal to obtain the signal with maximum signalto-noise ratio. This study provides a detailed assay of different diversity combining schemes i.e. selection combining, maximal ratio combining and equal gain combining. Index Terms Diversity Schemes, Fading, Selection Diversity (SC), Equal Gain Diversity (EGC), Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC).