New results for Shannon capacity over generalized multipath fading channels with MRC diversity

In this article, we investigate the Shannon capacity for L-branch maximal combining ratio (MRC) over generalized multipath fading channel. We derive closed-form expressions of the maximal spectral efficiency over Rayleigh, Rician, Nakagami-m, and Weibull multipath fading channel under flat fading conditions. The results are expressed in terms of Meijer G-functions, which can be evaluated numerically using mathematical tools such as Mathematica and Maple. We show, in particular, that the more the number L increases, the larger the Shannon capacity is. We deduce that four branches are sufficient in several cases to mitigate the fading effect and the channel model will approaches the one of AWGN.