# Finite-Blocklength Bounds on the Maximum Coding Rate of Rician Fading Channels with Applications to Pilot-Assisted Transmission

## TL;DR

This paper derives finite-blocklength bounds on the maximum coding rate for Rician block-fading channels without prior channel state information, highlighting the tradeoffs between diversity gains and pilot overhead.

## Contribution

It provides the first nonasymptotic bounds for Rician fading channels without channel state information at the receiver, quantifying the rate tradeoffs in practical scenarios.

## Key findings

- Bounds quantify the rate loss due to pilot overhead.
- Tradeoff analysis between diversity gains and channel variations.
- Guidelines for designing pilot-assisted transmission schemes.

## Abstract

We present nonasymptotic bounds on the maximum coding rate achievable over a Rician block-fading channel for a fixed packet size and a fixed packet error probability. Our bounds, which apply to the scenario where no a priori channel state information is available at the receiver, allow one to quantify the tradeoff between the rate gains resulting from the exploitation of time-frequency diversity and the rate loss resulting from fast channel variations and pilot-symbol overhead.