Performance of maximal ratio combiners over correlated Nakagami-m fading channels with arbitrary fading parameters

In this letter, performance metrics of maximal ratio combiners (MRC) over correlated Nakagami-m fading are calculated with both arbitrary fading parameters and average powers. We derive the moment generating function (MGF) of the sum of correlated gamma variables with arbitrary fading parameters. Using the MGF-based approach, we obtain the variance of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the output of the combiner, the outage probability, the average symbol error rate for coherent multichannel reception, and the diversity gain. The results for an exponentially decaying model of the fading parameter are presented and discussed.