Maximal Ratio Combining Diversity Analysis of Underwater Acoustic Communications Subject to κ-μ Shadowed Fading Channels

In this paper, a novel unified analytical expression for average bit error rates (ABER) and average channel capacity (ACC) is presented for the kappa-mu shadowed fading model. This model has recently shown to be suitable for underwater acoustic wireless channel modeling using the measurements conducted by the Naval Research Laboratory [1], and is not so well covered in the public literature. Deploying the maximal ratio combining diversity (MRC) receiver, a new simple analytical expression for the probability density function (PDF) of the receiver's output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is presented. Based on this new PDF, a novel unified ABER and ACC expression is derived. Moreover, to generalize the ABER analysis, the additive white generalized Gaussian noise model is assumed, which models different noise environments. The new unified expression is accurate, simple and generic, and is suitable for MRC analysis in this generalized shadowed fading and noise environment. Numerical techniques and published results from the literature prove the accuracy of our analysis and the generality of the derived unified expression.