Comparison of bit error rate (BER) in multipath phenomena Rayleigh and Rician using QPSK modulation in Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems

In wireless communications, there are Rician and Rayleigh multipath phenomena, which can cause destructive interference caused by a strong dominant component. The objective of the study is to analyze how these multipath phenomena affect the Bit Error Rate (BER), using phase shift keying (QPSK), as well as 5G Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technology to reduce or not the effect of fading to improve the BER. For the present study, the quantitative method is used to measure BER by comparative simulations of Rician and Rayleigh phenomena using different MIMO antenna configuration schemes using Matlab software. When comparing the multipath Rician and Rayleigh phenomena with QPSK modulation, it was determined that the most efficient channel is the Rician channel, since the BER is lower, performing a 4x4 MIMO antenna configuration. However, this efficiency may change if another type of modulation is used, which implies reducing the bit rate causing a reduction in bandwidth.