Diversity receiver and diversity reception method

A diversity receiver, comprising:

• a control section for generating an antenna selection signal such that a plurality of antennas are sequentially selected on a one-by-one basis;
• a gain amplifier for amplifying, based on a gain control signal, a signal which is received through an antenna selected according to the antenna selection signal;
• a power measurement section for measuring a power of the signal amplified by the gain amplifier;
• an averaging section for calculating an average power of each of signals received through the plurality of antennas based on the power measured in the power measurement section;
• a holding section for holding at least one of the average powers;
• a plurality of correlation sections which correspond to the plurality of antennas on a one-to-one basis, each of the correlation sections determining a correlation value between a signal received through a corresponding antenna and amplified by the gain amplifier and a predetermined pattern;
• a correlation detector for detecting the predetermined pattern in a signal received through each of the plurality of antennas based on a correlation value determined by a corresponding one of the correlation sections and an average power corresponding to the antenna and outputting a detection result;
• and
• a gain controller for generating the gain control signal such that the gain amplifier operates with a fixed gain till the control section determines an antenna that is to be subsequently selected and thereafter operates with a gain determined according to an average power corresponding to the selected antenna,
• wherein the control section determines an antenna through which a signal including the predetermined pattern detected by the correlation detector is received as the antenna that is to be subsequently selected based on the detection result of the correlation detector and outputs the antenna selection signal to select the determined antenna.