Performance Analysis of Decouple-and-Forward MIMO Relaying in Nakagami-m Fading

The end-to-end performance of dual-hop multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) decouple-and-forward relaying with orthogonal space-time block code (OSTBC) transmission over Nakagami-m fading is analyzed. By considering the multiple antennas at all nodes, we derive exact closed-form and asymptotic expressions for the outage probability and symbol error rate, which enables us to evaluate the exact performance and reveals the diversity gains of the considered system. In addition, the closed-form approximation and asymptotic expressions for the ergodic capacity are also derived. We show that OSTBC transmission over relay systems yields a unit order of multiplexing gain despite the fact that full diversity order, which is equal to the minimum fading severity between the two hops, is achieved.