Error performance of triple-branch generalized selection diversity over Nakagami fading channels

Abstract

This paper deals with a trivariate Nakagami-m distribution derived from the diagonal elements of a Wishart matrix having an arbitrary covariance matrix and integer-order fading parameters. Based on that distribution, the error rate performance of triple-branch generalized selection combining (GSC) receivers is analyzed, for which, the average bit error probability for a variety of modulation schemes is analytically obtained. The performance of GSC receivers is compared to that of conventional selection and maximal-ratio diversity ones. In order to check the accuracy of the derived formulas, various performance evaluation results are presented and compared to equivalent simulation ones.