Cooperative Diversity with Blind Relays in Nakagami-m Fading Channels: MRC Analysis

We derive the exact maximal-ratio combining (MRC) performance of dual-hop cooperative diversity systems with L-antenna destination reception in Nakagami-m fading channels, where a single-antenna relay operates in semi-blind (fixed-gain) amplify-and-forward (AF) mode. We also show that if m
₀
, m
₁
, and m
₂
are the respective Nakagami parameters for the source-to-destination, source-to-relay, and relay-to-destination links, the semi-blind AF cooperation with MRC achieves the diversity order of m
₀
L + min {m
₁
, m
₂
L}.