Bayesian methods for erasure insertion in frequency-hopping multiple access with Rice selective fading

A Bayesian decision rule for erasure insertion is derived, assuming frequency-hop multiple-access communications in Rician selective fading. The proposed method is based on a channel-identification approach together with decision feedback. Given the propagation environment under study, which can be deemed typical for broadband mobile systems, the Rice factor, in addition to the channel power delay profile, needs to be estimated by the receiver. Significant performance gain, compared to the simple ratio-threshold test (RTT), can be achieved with the proposed method at the expense of greater complexity, mainly due to the channel-identification requirement. Nevertheless, it is shown that this Bayesian decision rule exhibits high robustness in respect of the joint estimation of the Rice factor and power-delay profile, thus proving its actual applicability in real receivers employing erasure insertion.