New Results on SC and MRC Over Nakagami-m Fading Channels with Arbitrary Correlation Matrix

New results for the multichannel Nakagami-m fading model with an arbitrary correlation matrix are presented. By using an efficient tridiagonalization method based on Householder matrices, a union upper bound for the joint Nakagami-m probability density function and an infinite series representation for the moment generating function of the sum of gamma random variables are derived. Based on the proposed mathematical analysis, a tight union upper bound for the outage probability of multibranch selection diversity, as well as, exact analytical expressions for the outage and average error probability of multibranch maximal-ratio diversity receivers operating over identically distributed and arbitrarily correlated Nakagami-m fading channels are obtained. Our analysis is verified by comparisons of numerically evaluated results with extensive computer simulation ones.