A rake receiver is a radio receiver designed to counter the effects of multipath fading. It does this by using several "sub-receivers" each delayed slightly in order to tune in to the individual multipath components. Each component is decoded independently, but at a later stage combined in order to make the most use of the different transmission characteristics of each transmission path. This could very well result in higher Signal-to-noise ratio (or Eb/No) in a multipath environment than in a "clean" environment.

The rake receiver is so named because of its analogous function to a garden rake, each finger collecting bit or symbol energy similarly to how tines on a rake collect leaves. Rake receivers are common in a wide variety of CDMA and W-CDMA radio devices such as mobile phones and wireless LAN equipment.

Telecommunications equipment | Wireless communications