Error Probability and SINR Analysis of Optimum Combining in Rician Fading

This paper considers the analysis of optimum combining systems in the presence of both co-channel interference and thermal noise. We address the cases where either the desired-user or the interferers undergo Rician fading. Exact expressions are derived for the moment generating function of the SINR which apply for arbitrary numbers of antennas and interferers. Based on these, we obtain expressions for the symbol error probability with M-PSK. For the case where the desireduser undergoes Rician fading, we also derive exact closed-form expressions for the moments of the SINR. We show that these moments are directly related to the corresponding moments of a Rayleigh system via a simple scaling parameter, which is investigated in detail. Numerical results are presented to validate the analysis and to examine the impact of Rician fading on performance.