Selection diversity receivers over nonidentical Weibull fading channels

The performance of selection combining (SC) receivers operating over independent, but not necessarily identically distributed, Weibull fading channels is studied. A novel closed form expression for the moments of the SC output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is derived, which is used to study the corresponding average output SNR and amount of fading. Second-order statistical parameters such as the average level crossing rate and average fade duration at the output of the SC are also obtained in closed form. Moreover, the average symbol error probability for several coherent and noncoherent modulations schemes as well as the Shannon capacity are extracted in terms of the tabulated Meijer´s G-function. Simulations are also performed to validate the proposed formulation.