Closed-Form ASER Results of Rectangular QAM in MIMO MRC with Arbitrary Number of Antennas

Closed-form expressions for the average symbol error rate (ASER) of general rectangular quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) in Rayleigh fading are derived in this work for MIMO MRC systems. The number of antennas are assumed to be arbitrary at both the transmit and receive ends. An expression is derived in terms of a finite summation where all the terms are explicitly given and can be easily calculated. Additionally, a compact result is also provided in terms of coefficients which must be numerically computed. Monte Carlo simulations have also been carried out, showing an excellent agreement with the theoretical results.