Antenna diversity

Each of these bounces can introduce phase shifts, time delays, attenuations, and distortions that can destructively interfere with one another at the aperture of the receiving antenna.

Also with the multiple signals there is a greater processing demand placed on the receiver, which can lead to tighter design requirements.

Typically, however, signal reliability is paramount and using multiple antennas is an effective way to decrease the number of drop-outs and lost connections.

Depending on the environment and the expected interference, designers can employ one or more of these methods to improve signal quality.

Another common usage is in Wi-Fi networking gear and cordless telephones to compensate for multipath interference.

The use of multiple antennas at both transmit and receive results in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system.

Wireless channels severely suffer from fading phenomena, which causes unreliability in data decoding.