Performance analysis of equal-gain diversity receivers over generalized Gamma fading channels

Generalized Gamma (GG) distribution is a generic model that covers many well-known fading distributions as special cases. This paper deals with the performance analysis of L-branch equal gain combining (EGC) receivers operating over GG fading channels. For these receivers and by using convergent infinite series approach, the probability of error (P-e) can be formulated in the form of an infinite series. The coefficients of P-e series can be derived by calculating complicated integrations over the fading envelope distribution. In this paper, it is shown that the required integrations for the case of GG distribution have a complex closed-form in terms of Meijer's G function, and then, a new approximation method is developed for computation of them. The proposed method only needs mean and variance of the fading envelope; hence it has low complexity and eliminates the need for calculation of complex functions. The presented numerical examples show that the developed method can approximate the required parameters and also the individual coefficients accurately and this accuracy increases with the increase of L. The proposed method is applied to analyze the probability of error performance of the L-branch EGC receiver with both coherent phase shift keying (CPSK) and frequency shift keying (CFSK) modulation schemes under different GG channel conditions. Also the effect of gain unbalance between diversity branches on the probability of error is investigated. (c) 2007 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.