Unified Performance Analysis of Two-Hop Fixed Gain Relay Systems with Beamforming

We present a unified performance analysis of beamforming, for the system in which the source and the destination are both equipped with multiple antennas while the relay is equipped with a single antenna. By assuming general correlation structures with arbitrary eigenvalue multiplicities at the source and the destination, the exact outage probability for fixed gain relaying is derived. As a result, our new results unify all previously reported cases as well as new additional ones. Furthermore we derive the exact outage probability for TAS(Transmitter Antenna Selection)/MRC system and provide a performance comparison of the two systems. To gain insights, we have also presented high signal-to-noise ratio expressions which clearly show the impact of number of transmit/receive antennas and correlation on the outage probability. Finally, Monte Carlo simulations are presented to verify the correctness of the analytical results.