A closed-form upper-bound for the distribution of the weighted sum of Rayleigh variates

The problem of finding the distribution of the sum of more than two Rayleigh fading envelopes has never been solved in terms of tabulated functions. In this letter, we present a closed-form union upper-bound for the cumulative distribution function of the weighted sum of N independent Rayleigh fading envelopes. Computer simulation results verify the tightness of the proposed bound for several values of N. The proposed bound can be efficiently applied in various wireless applications, such as satellite communications, equal-gain receivers, and radars.