Antenna diversity for mobile satellite applications: Performance evaluation based on measurements

This paper focuses on the achievable antenna diversity gain for land mobile satellite applications. A measurement van was equipped with four antennas, mounted at the front, back, left and right side of the rooftop. A high-power satellite broadcasting signal within the S-band was recorded along the east coast of the United States. Based on the measured high-resolution fading profile, the antenna diversity gain using maximal-ratio combining and selection combining within different environments is derived based on a prediction of the resulting word error rate.