Asymptotic SER and Outage Probability of MIMO MRC in Correlated Fading

TL;DR

This paper derives asymptotic SER and outage probability expressions for MIMO MRC systems in correlated Rayleigh fading, revealing that correlation affects array gain but not diversity order.

Contribution

It introduces new asymptotic formulas for the eigenvalue distributions of correlated MIMO channels, analyzing their impact on system performance.

Findings

Spatial correlation does not change the diversity order.

Correlation reduces array gain, increasing SER at high SNR.

Derived new asymptotic expressions for eigenvalue distributions.

Abstract

This letter derives the asymptotic symbol error rate (SER) and outage probability of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) maximum ratio combining (MRC) systems. We consider Rayleigh fading channels with both transmit and receive spatial correlation. Our results are based on new asymptotic expressions which we derive for the p.d.f. and c.d.f. of the maximum eigenvalue of positive-definite quadratic forms in complex Gaussian matrices. We prove that spatial correlation does not affect the diversity order, but that it reduces the array gain and hence increases the SER in the high SNR regime.