Performance analysis of bandwidth efficient coherent modulation schemes with L-fold MRC and SC in Nakagami-m fading channels

This paper presents the average symbol error rates (SERs) of the 16-ary phase shift keying (16PSK), 16-ary amplitude phase shift keying (16APSK) and 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16QAM) with L-fold maximal ratio combining (MRC) and selection combining (SC) space diversity reception over Nakagami-m fading channels. Numerical results manifested error performance improvement when L-fold MRC and SC diversity receptions were employed. Error performance improvement attributed to L=2 MRC diversity reception is comparable with that attributed to L=4 SC diversity reception for the above three 16-ary modulation systems in a Nakagami-m fading channel with m of 5.