ABER of Dual Predetection EGC in Correlated Nakagami-m Fading Channels with Arbitrary m

We have analyzed the performance of a predetection equal gain combining (EGC) receiver over correlated Nakagami-m fading channels with arbitrary and non-identical m and unequal branch SNRs. Closed-form expression for average bit error rate (ABER) for coherent binary modulation schemes is derived by finding the characteristic function (CHF) of the sum of two correlated Nakagami-m envelopes with different fading parameters and then using Parseval's theorem. The derived expression can be viewed as a generalization of four different special cases reported in the literature. It was observed that depending on the values of m
₁
and m
₂
the ABER curves for two different pairs of (m
₁
,m
₂
) may intersect. Thus, if the performance corresponding to a pair is inferior to another pair at any SNR, this may not hold true over the entire SNR range.