Probability of error for noncoherent M-ary orthogonal FSK with postdetection switched combining

This letter extends the notion of postdetection switched combining previously introduced by the authors to M-ary orthogonal modulation and proceeds to analyze and evaluate its average bit-error rate performance for the dual-branch case. The particular variation chosen for the switching strategy uses a different model than that previously used for the binary case and although it results in a slightly poorer performance, it nevertheless outperforms conventional (predetection) switched combining for all values of M. Results are obtained for a variety of popular channel models including Rayleigh, Rician, and Nakagami-m fading. Because of its relative simplicity of implementation, the proposed scheme once again offers a very attractive low-complexity solution for mitigating the deleterious effects of multipath fading.