This letter analytically determines the effects of selective diversity on the performance of a RAKE receiver in dense multipath channels featuring an arbitrary power delay profile. The approach devised permits assessing the symbol-error probability of the RAKE receiver with simple computations, and determining the influence on system behavior of different power delay profiles and number of resolved paths, as well as signal bandwidth.

We determine the effects of different diversity schemes on the behavior of a direct-sequence spread spectrum RAKE receiver which operates with random spreading sequences, in a multipath channel with arbitrary power delay profile. Two different receiver architectures, the former employing the L instantaneously strongest paths out of the N/sub r/ resolved ones, and the latter simply the L first paths out of the received N/sub r/, are confronted in terms of symbol error probability, when an M-level PSK system is assumed. The analytical approach devised for assessing such comparison gives the symbol error probability in terms of simple elementary integrals, and immediately evidences the influence on system behavior of the number of resolved paths, bandwidth occupancy of the signal and power delay profile, with a remarkably moderate computational effort.