Performance analysis under multiple antennas in wireless sensor networks based on the generalized approach to signal processing

The average bit-error rate performance of wireless sensor networks based on the generalized approach to signal processing in the presence of noise under the use of multiple antennas at the sensor sink is investigated as a function of the transmit antenna update rate at the sensor nodes when using binary phase-shift keying signals in flat Rayleigh fading channels. This scheme achieves an order of diversity equal to the product of the number of transmit sensor node antennas and receive sensor sink ones. Therefore, it can gain significant diversity benefits over traditional receive diversity schemes by distributing the antennas over transmit and receive side (sensor nodes and sensor sink, respectively). We study two cases: an ideal transmit antenna selection and non-ideal transmit antenna selection.