Performance of M-PSK in mobile satellite communication over combined ionospheric scintillation and flat fading channels with MRC diversity

Combined scintillation and terrestrial fadings occur in mobile satellite communication channels as the signal passes through the ionosphere and the lower atmosphere. This results in a product fading channel, which negatively affects the performance of the system. The challenge is to evaluate the performance of the system, in terms of the average bit error probability (BEP). In this paper, through the use of the moment generating function, we derive expressions for the average BEP and an upper bound for M-ary phase-shift keying (M-PSK) modulation with maximal-ratio combining (MRC) diversity over the product RiciantimesRician channel. The results are expressed as double summations in terms of the generalized hypergeometric function, which can be computed using standard commercial software. For a large Rician factor, the expression is simplified to a single summation. Numerical results are obtained from the derived expressions and compared with simulation results. They show very good agreement for various Rician factors and the number of diversity branches. The upper bound is also evaluated and shown to be reasonably tight.