Performance of M-PSK with GSC and EGC with Gaussian weighting errors

Using a moment-generating function (MGF)-based approach, we study the performance of M-ary phase-shift keying (M-PSK) with generalized selection combining (GSC) and equal gain combining (EGC) in fading channels (including Rayleigh, Rician, Nakagami-m, and Nakagami-q fading) with independent and identically distributed (i.i.d) branches. Analytical expressions for the error and outage probabilities, the signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) statistics, and the channel capacity of M-PSK diversity receivers are derived, taking into account the effects of Gaussian weighting errors and all relevant system and channel parameters. Unlike the case of perfect channel-state information (CSI), the outage probability for the case of imperfect channel estimation (ICE) is not only a function of the normalized SNR with respect to the SNR threshold, but also a function of the operating SNR itself. The SNR loss of the M-PSK GSC and EGC receivers due to ICE and the relation between the receiver input and output SNRs for ICE are derived. Our results show that, even with ICE, GSC and EGC are effective in improving the output SNR and significantly reduce the error floor and the channel-capacity loss caused by ICE.