The Analysis of Protection Ratio and Its Effect of Interference-to-Noise Ratio for Digital Microwave System with Diversity

In this paper, the derivation of the protection ratio for the digital microwave system with diversity is newly suggested for a basic guidance of initial planning for frequency coordination, and computational results are presented for an actual radio frequency band. The net filter discrimination has been also examined to see the effect of the adjacent channel protection ratio caused by adjacent channel interference. In addition, the protection ratios for the space or frequency diversity system are analyzed in terms of diversity improvement factors to find out an equivalent allowable noise-to-interference ratio (N/I) from degraded fade margin. According to results for 6.2 GHz system, with the space diversity of 25 m distance between antennas or the frequency diversity of ${\Delta}f/f=0.05$, under 64-QAM and 60 km at BER $10^{-6}$, the protection ratio can be greatly reduced in comparison to the non-diversity system. So, assuming that only the same protection ratio as the non-diversity system is kept, it is shown that the system with diversity may get more interference level of N/I allowing from 9.0 to - 5.9 dB or from 6.0 to - 4.3 dB for the space or frequency diversity. In consequence, it is concluded that the diversity system is more robust or tolerable for interferences or fades, which may play an important role in overcoming N/I to some extent.