A very tight approximate results of MRC receivers over independent Weibull fading channels

In this paper, we study the performance of L-branch maximal-ratio combining (MRC) receivers operating over independent Weibull-fading channels. Our main result is a very tight approximation of the probability density function (PDF) of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the output of the combiner. Based on this result, accurate approximation of significant performance criteria, such as outage probability and average symbol error rate (ASER) are derived. We also evaluate the average bit error rate (ABER) for several coherent and non-coherent modulation schemes, using a closed-form expression for the moment-generating function (MGF) of the output SNR for MRC receivers. In addition, we derive some analytical expressions for channel capacity under various adaptation policies such as optimal rate adaptation (ORA), Optimal simultaneous power and rate adaptation (OPRA), Channel inversion with fixed rate (CIFR), and Truncated channel inversion with fixed rate (TCIFR). The proposed mathematical analysis is complemented by numerous numerical results, which point out the effects of fading severity on the overall system performance. Computer simulations are also performed to verify the validity and the accuracy of the proposed theoretical approach. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.