Performance Analysis of Rayleigh Fading Channels with Hybrid Correlation Effects with 2-Branch Maximal Ratio Combining

This paper deals with the impact of channel estimation errors on the capacity of correlated fading MIMO channels. In this paper, closed-form expressions for cumulative density function and probability density function for Rayleigh fading channels with combined effects of impairments due to combining errors and branch correlation errors for 2-branch case are derived. We also derive closed-form expressions for capacities per unit bandwidth for fading channels with effects of hybrid correlation for two branch maximal ratio combining diversity reception case for different adaptation policies. We show that hybrid correlation leads to increased performance degradation when combining correlation is low and branch correlation is high and vice versa. Even though hybrid correlation exists between branches, capacity gains are significantly more for adaptation policies especially for OPRA policy as compared to other policies for both cases.