Performance of binary multi-h modulation for fast fading, shadowed, mobile satellite communication channels

The performance of bandwidth efficient multih modulation is determined for a class of fading models for mobile satellite communication. The fading model has the structure of a Rician model except that the line-of-sight component is subjected to a lognormal transformation. This models shadow fading due to foliage attenuation. The multi-h codes are considered under conditions of perfect and partial coherence. The phase jitter due to fading is found to be a major impairment to system performance. A fast fading assumption is used with system fading bandwidths of 5 to 10 percent of the baud rate. The fading spectrum follows a third-order-Butterworth spectral shaping and uses fading model parameters based on measured data. The system average bit error probability is determined via a digital computer simulation on an additive white Gaussian noise channel with received signal fading.