Moment based analysis of equal gain combiner in equally correlated Nakagami-m fading channels

Abstract

Moments of the equal gain combiner (EGC) output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) are only known for independent and exponentially correlated Nakagami-m fading channels. We derive the moments of the EGC output SNR in equally correlated Nakagami-m fading channels. Our moment expressions can be used to evaluate the outage and the average error rate of EGC as well as purely moments-based measures such as the average output SNR and the amount of fading as functions of the fading correlation. Numerical results that illustrate the effect of fading correlation on the distribution of the EGC output SNR are also provided. The average output SNR increases with the fading correlation.