Ergodic Capacity and SNR Analysis for Dual Hop Amplify and Forward Cooperative Communication Systems Over $\alpha$$-$$\eta$$-$$\mu$ Channels

Dual-hop communication systems are known to extend coverage and reduce transmit power in scenarios where one-hop communication is not possible. The α - η - μ fading distribution is a general fading distribution that can be reduced to other fading distributions like Rayleigh, Nakagami-m, α-μ, and η-μ. In this paper, we study the statistics of the end-to-end signal to noise ratio (SNR) of a dual-hop amplify and forward system with semi-blind relay over independent but not necessarily identical α - η - μ fading channels. Specifically, we derive an expression for the nth moment of the end-to-end SNR. The derived expression is then utilized to find the average value, the amount of fading, and the ergodic capacity of the end-to-end SNR. Numerical results are provided and compared to simulations to validate the derived expressions.