Abstract: | For future mobile radio systems, an appropriately chosen multiple access technique is a critical issue. Multiple access techniques presently under discussion are code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), and hybrids of both. In the paper, a hybrid C/TDMA system using joint detection (JD-C/TDMA) with coherent receiver antenna diversity (CRAD) at the base station (BS) receiver is proposed. Some attractive features of the JD-C/TDMA system are the possibility to flexibly offer voice and data services with different bit rates, soft capacity, inherent frequency and interferer diversity, and high system capacity due to JD. Furthermore, due to JD, a cluster size equal to 1 can be realized without needing soft handover. The single cell Eb/N0 performance and the interference situation in a cellular environment of the uplink of a JD-C/TDMA mobile radio system with CRAD is investigated in detail. It is shown that the cellular spectrum efficiency is remarkably high, taking values up to 0.2 bit/s/Hz/BS in the uplink, depending on the actual transmission conditions |