Performance analysis of a convolutional coded DS/CDMA system in Nakagami fading channels

In this paper, we investigate the performance of convolutional coded DS/CDMA with noncoherent M-ary orthogonal modulation operating in a multi-user environment over a slow and frequency nonselective Nakagami-m fading channel with additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). An expression for the pairwise error probability that can be used to compute the upper bound of coded system is first derived. Performance of the DS/CDMA system with and without the convolutional codes is then presented. We have observed that convolutional codes can compensate for the degradation quite well in multi-user situations over Nakagami fading channels with AWGN. For the case of an extreme fading, however, it has been seen that the convolutional code reaches its limit to improve the overall system performance as the number of users increase. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.