Fluctuating Nakagami-m Fading Distribution

In this letter, we introduce a new fading distribution called fluctuating Nakagami-
${m}$
. This new distribution emerges as the ratio of two independent random variables (RVs): the numerator follows the Nakagami-
${m}$
distribution, while the denominator is a power of the uniform distribution. The fluctuating Nakagami-
${m}$
fading model includes the well-known Nakagami-
${m}$
and Rayleigh fading models as special cases. We derive closed-form expressions for the envelope probability density function (PDF) and cumulative distribution function (CDF). We fit the envelope PDF of fluctuating Nakagami-
${m}$
to empirical data obtained from underwater acoustic communications, vehicle-to-vehicle communications, and device-to-device communications as potential applications. Furthermore, we investigate the performance of a conventional wireless communication system in terms of outage probability, average bit error rate, and channel capacity. Moreover, accurate asymptotic expressions for the aforementioned performance metrics are deduced.