Comments on "Exact error-rate analysis of diversity 16-QAM with channel-estimation error"

Recently, Cao and Beaulieu presented an insightful analysis on the bit-error performance of 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) scheme on Rayleigh fading channels with maximal ratio combining diversity and channel estimation errors. Unfortunately, although exact, the results presented in that paper are based on a complicated parabolic cylinder function, and a two-dimensional numerical integration has to be performed to evaluate the average probability of bit error. In this letter, we present a surprisingly simple expression for the average probability of error in a well-known closed form. We point out that the error rates for any N-ary square/rectangular QAM constellation with Gray mapping can also be expressed in this form. Furthermore, we show that the presented results can also be modified, in a simple fashion, for a generalized selection combining scheme in the presence of channel estimation errors.