Exact performance analysis of dual-branch coherent equal-gain combining in Nakagami-m, Rice and Hoyt fading

The exact symbol error rates of several M-ary modulation schemes are obtained in a unified manner for mobile radio receivers employing dual-branch coherent equal-gain combining, where the received signals on each branch follow either similar or different fading distributions. Specifically, the cases considered are Nakagami-m, Rice and Hoyt fading on both branches but with not necessarily identical parameters, and mixed Nakagami-m/Rice and Nakagami-m/Hoyt fading. While previous exact expressions for the symbol error rates of general M-ary modulations with L-branch equal-gain combining contained double integrals, the error probability expressions derived in this paper for the case L = 2 contain only a single integral.