SER and outage of threshold-based hybrid selection/maximal-ratio combining over generalized fading channels

The average symbol-error rate and outage probability of threshold-based hybrid selection/maximal-ratio combining (T-HS/MRC) in generalized fading environments are analyzed. A T-HS/MRC combiner chooses the combined branches according to a predetermined normalized threshold and the strength of the instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of each branch. Therefore, the number of combined branches is a random variable, rather than a fixed number, as in conventional hybrid selection/maximal-ratio combining (H-S/MRC). Using the moment generating function method, a unified analysis of T-HS/MRC over various slow and frequency-nonselective fading channels is presented. Both independent, identically distributed and independent, nonidentically distributed diversity branches are considered. The derivation allows different M-ary linear modulation schemes. The theory is illustrated using coherent M-ary phase-shift keying in Nakagami-m fading as an example. It is shown that previous published results are incorrect.