Error-bound formulation for multichannel reception of M-DPSK and pilot-aided M-PSK over Rayleigh-fading channels with postdetection combining

Upper bounds for symbol-error probability are developed for multichannel reception of M-ary phase-shift keying (M-PSK) over frequency-flat Rayleigh-fading channels. Differential coherent demodulation of differentially encoded M-PSK (M-DPSK), pilot-tone aided coherent demodulation of M-PSK (PTA M-CPSK) and pilot-symbol aided coherent demodulation of M-PSK (PSA M-CPSK) are considered in the formulation. The bounds enable the investigation of the effects of fading correlation and unequal average power level between channels using postdetection diversity reception with maximal-ratio combining. Error-performance degradation due to imperfect demodulation effects, such as Doppler spread in M-DPSK schemes, noisy reference signals in PTA M-CPSK, and PSA M-CPSK schemes can be taken into account in the formulation. Exact bit-error probabilities for both binary and quaternary phase-shift keying are also derived.