Performance analysis of generalized selection combining in generalized correlated Nakagami-m fading

The exact performance of selection combining, hybrid selection/maximal-ratio combining (H-S/MRC), and threshold-based H-S/MRC in correlated Nakagami-m fading for positive integer values of fading parameter m, is analyzed for a particular correlation structure. This correlation model, though not general, is much more general than the equal-correlation case, and includes equal correlation as a special case. The symbol-error rate and outage probability of the three combining schemes are obtained by transforming the correlated branch gains into a set of conditionally independent branch gains. Numerical and simulation results show excellent agreement with theoretical results. Index Terms--Correlated fading, diversity, hybrid selection/ maximal-ratio combining (H-S/MRC), Nakagami-m fading, outage probability, selection combining (SC), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), symbol-error rate (SER), threshold-based H-S/MRC (T-HS/MRC).