An energy-efficient diversity scheme based on the well researched Generalized-Switch-and-Examine Combining (GSEC) is presented. The presented scheme is more efficient in terms of providing better average combined SNR per active path. This results in considerable processing power savings of the receiver especially compared to the GSC scheme. EE-GSEC performance in terms of the average combined SNR, outage probability and average bit error rate (BER) are comparable to GSEC under certain conditions. EE-GSEC’s complexity performance is better than GSC and same as GSEC. This results in a considerable hardware cost savings at the receiver. However, the complexity savings come at the cost of performance when compared to GSC. This is a natural trade-off and needs to be considered when designing a wireless communication system. A thorough statistical analysis of the presented scheme is performed and then used to mathematically formulate the performance and complexity expressions. Using simulations the performance and complexity of EE-GSEC is examined and compared against other competing schemes. An energy efficiency analysis that validates the efficiency claims of the scheme is also performed. / Graduate / 0544 / hpbains@gmail.com