Closed-Form Performance Analysis of Generalized M-QAM over Multihop Weibull Fading Channels

In this paper, we present a closed-form performance analysis of multihop cooperative schemes in the context of the global effort towards the design of future 5G systems. We adopt the advocated Weibull channel fading model for its flexible ability to cover different channel conditions, and supported by many recent measurement campaigns in various emerging 5G scenarios. The analyzed scheme consists of multiple "Detect-and-Forward" relays with generalized high-order M-QAM transmissions. The end-to-end performance of the multihop communication is evaluated in terms of the outage probability, bit error rate, and ergodic capacity. For all these metrics, we present exact closed-form expressions, some in terms of the Meijer's G-function. Numerical results illustrate the analysis, and Monte-Carlo simulations assess the accuracy of our obtained results for different system and channel parameters.