Performance of cellular CDMA with cell site antenna arrays, Rayleigh fading, and power control error

The performance of code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems is affected by multiple factors such as large-scale fading, small-scale fading, and cochannel interference (CCI). Most of the published research on the performance analysis of CDMA systems usually accounts for subsets of these factors. In this work, it is attempted to provide a comprehensive analysis which joins several of the most important factors affecting the performance of CDMA systems. In particular, new analytical expressions are developed for the outgate and bit-error probability of CDMA systems. These expressions account for adverse effects such as path loss, large-scale fading (shadowing), small-scale fading (Rayleigh fading), and CCI, as well as for correcting mechanisms such as power control (compensates for path loss and shadowing), spatial diversity (mitigates against Rayleigh fading), and voice activity gating (reduces CCI). The new expressions may be used as convenient analysis tools that complement computer simulations. Of particular interest are tradeoffs revealed among system parameters, such as maximum allowed power control error versus the number of antennas used for spatial diversity.