Performance analysis of generalized switch and examine combining

In diversity-rich environments, there is a tradeoff between performance and complexity. While combining a high number of paths improves the performance, it also increases the receiver complexity. With this in mind, we look into the performance of generalized switch and examine combining (GSEC): a low-complexity scheme suitable for diversity-rich environments. More specifically, after deriving the statistics of the combiner output, including the moment generating function and probability density function, we analyze the performance of GSEC in independent and identically distributed Rayleigh fading environment in terms of average combiner signal-to-noise ratio, outage probability, and average error probability. As an illustration of the mathematical formalism, selected numerical examples are provided together with some related discussions and result interpretations.