Laboratory Measurements and a Theoretical Analysis of the TCT Fading Channel Radio System

This paper documents the laboratory and theoretical performance of a pilot-aided digital radio system. The technique considered transmits a midband pilot tone to improve the receiver data detection performance in a multipath fading channel and is referred to as the tone calibrated technique (TCT). We report on the performance of a 860 MHz prototype system carrying 2.4 kbit/s data under Rician fading conditions. Both experimental and analytical results show that the error floor experienced with nonpilot-aided transmission methods is effectively removed by the TCT scheme, resulting in significant performance gains at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values. The paper also examines the TCT system performance under typical operating conditions and presents a new analysis of the TCT theoretical error probability.