Effects of channel estimation errors on absolute threshold-generalized selection diversity combining

Absolute threshold generalized selection combining (AT-GSC) is a combining scheme which intends to reduce the power consumption and hence, extend the battery life at the terminal end. An AT-GSC scheme requires channel estimation for its operation. Previous works studying AT-GSC have exclusively examined AT-GSC systems under the assumption of perfect channel estimation. Maximal-ratio-combining is a special case when the threshold is set very low and all the branches are chosen, which consumes maximum power. We derive the average bit error rate (BER) and the cumulative distribution function (cdf) of the output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for AT-GSC when there is channel estimation error. The effects of channel estimation errors on the BER and combiner output SNR are studied.