In high-speed TDMA mobile communications, frequency-selective fading is a serious problem because a delay time difference between multipath signals is large in comparison with symbol duration. We have proposed a spatial-domain RAKE receiver using a multibeam adaptive antenna to reduce frequency-selective fading and to realize path-diversity. The multibeam adaptive antenna resolves multipath signals in the spatial domain, and combines array outputs. In this paper, we propose the application of MUSIC algorithm to estimation of the time delays of multipath signals to make the incident signals coincide with a common reference signal. Because the MUSIC algorithm can estimate the time delays accurately, the BER performance of the proposed scheme is improved. Furthermore, we propose weighting factors which easily realize the maximal-ratio combining.

Frequency-selective fading due to multipath propagation is serious hindrance in high-speed TDMA mobile communications. An adaptive antenna has been proposed to reduce the frequency-selective fading and realize path-diversity. This paper presents a criterion which selects multipath signals and weighting factors for combining them. First, we describe a selection criterion which chooses the multipath signals for the path-diversity. We propose a ratio of signal power to error power for the criterion. Furthermore, we propose weighting factors which realize approximately the maximal ratio combining. Computer simulation results show that the proposed selection criterion and weighting factors reveal excellent performance.