A study of different partitioning schemes in first order Markovian models for Rayleigh fading channels

The performance studies of wireless systems often require a wireless channel model. A common one, for Rayleigh fading environments, is founded upon variations of the finite state Markov channel model (FSMC). This model partitions the received signal to noise ratio (SNR) into a finite number of intervals and represents each interval as a state of a Markov process. Previous studies have elaborated on the accuracy and appropriateness of the model under several assumptions. A key aspect that remains to be studied is the effect of the partitioning scheme. We study the effects of several proposed schemes and investigate the performance of a new scheme that takes into account the average fade duration at various SNR levels.