Comparison of coherent and differential detection of BPSK and QPSK in a quasistatic fading channel

The advantage of coherent detection over differential detection for quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) and binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) in a flat-fading channel is evaluated based on receiver-sensitivity analysis using three performance criteria. QPSK is concentrated upon to perform simulations for a frequency-selective fading channel. Spectral efficiency improvement due to better frequency reuse for the more sensitive coherent detection is evaluated with a combination of analysis and simulation. It is found that coherent detection with perfect carrier recovery is superior to differential detection by at least 2.4 dB, which converts to about a 30% improvement in spectral efficiency in a two-dimensional, frequency reuse system with a fourth-power propagation exponent. This advantage is preserved even if diversity selection is used to mitigate fading