Performance analysis of CDMA systems in multipath channels

This thesis provides a performance analysis of Code Division Multiple Access (COMA) systems in non-ideal conditions. Two benefits of CDMA include resistance to multipath fading and graceful performance degradation in the presence of multiple access interference. These benefits have made CDMA especially attractive for cellular telephone systems and other wireless networks. This thesis project is divided into four tasks.

The first objective is to implement a channel model incorporating multiple access interference and to verify the results. A method is used that obtains arbitrarily tight upper and lower bounds on the average probability of error without using a Gaussian approximation. The second objective is to model imperfect power control. The third objective is to incorporate multipath effects into this model using a discrete number of multipath components with some known probability distribution. This modeling is based on measurements taken in indoor and outdoor channels. The fourth objective is a performance analysis for a RAKE receiver applied to outdoor channels.