ANALYTICAL EXPRESSION FOR THE MAXIMUM RATIO COMBINER (MRC) SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO IN CORRELATED RICIAN FADING CHANNELS DUE TO ANTENNA MUTUAL COUPLING

An analytical expression of the cumulative distribution function (cdf) of the normalized signal-to-noise ratio SNR of the maximum ratio combiner (MRC) in correlated Rician fading channels has been derived. The expression is expressed as an infinite power series which can be computed very fast by truncation to a finite number of terms. The analytical expression can handle any number of receiving branches with different antenna correlations, antenna gains, antenna separations, and signal angles. Results obtained from the analytical expression are compared with those generated by computer Monte Carlo simulations. The cdfs obtained can be used for the determination of diversity gains in correlated Rician fading channels