Outage probability analysis of a MIMO relay channel with orthogonal space-time block codes

We investigate the performance of a cooperative multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay channel in which the source and relay use the same orthogonal space-time block code (OSTBC) for transmission whereas the relay and destination use maximum-ratio-combining (MRC) for reception. Considering that perfect channel state information is available at the relay and destination, we derive a closed-form expression for the outage probability of the destination signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in terms of the confluent hypergeometric function of two variables in a Rayleigh flat-fading environment. The validity of the closed-form expression is confirmed with the numerical results.