Performance of Amplify-and-Forward Cooperative Diversity Networks with Generalized Selection Combining over Nakagami-m Fading Channels

Abstract

This letter investigates the symbol error rate (SER) and outage behavior of the amplify-and-forward (AF) protocol with the generalized selection combining (GSC) scheme over Nakagami-m fading channels. The asymptotic expressions of the SER and outage probability at the high SNR regions have been derived. The diversity gain has been investigated as well. Simulation results verify the tightness and accuracy of the presented analysis at the high SNR regions. These results are quite simple and general for the arbitrary value of Nakagami-m fading figure. More importantly, the proposed approach is applicable to other fading channels. Performances for Rayleigh, Rician and Hoyt fading channels are also evaluated in this letter.