Intermittent Binary Communications in a Rayleigh Fading Medium

The error rate performance of a binary communication system, operating in a Rayleigh fading medium, which possesses the capability of automatically ceasing to operate when the received signal-to-noise ratio falls below a preassigned value is analyzed. Communication systems possessing this capability are shown to perform significantly better than systems which operate continuously in the same medium. It is shown that the intermittent system performance asymptotically, i.e., operation in the total signal environment, approaches the multireceiver performance for the case when the multireceiver is measuring only one path.