Performance of dual maximal ratio combining diversity in nonidentical correlated Weibull fading channels using Pade/spl acute/ approximation

In this letter, we evaluate the performance of the dual-branch maximal ratio combining (MRC) diversity scheme in nonidentical correlated Weibull fading channels with arbitrary parameters. We first use the Pade/spl acute/ approximation (PA) to find closed-form rational expressions for the moment generating function (MGF) of the output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the MRC receiver. Different performance measures, such as the outage probability and the average symbol-error rate for different linear modulations, are then presented using the well-known MGF approach. Furthermore, the effect of the input SNRs unbalancing, the severity of fading, and the degree of correlation on the system performance are also studied. Our results are validated by comparing them with computer simulations, and we show that the PA technique is indeed a convenient tool for such performance evaluation studies.