Simple series from formula of BER performance for M-ary QAM/OFDM signals with MRC diversity reception over nonlinear fading channels

Abstract

This paper proposes the theoretical derivation method of the bit error rate (BER) for M-ary QAM/OFDM signals using maximal ratio combining (MRC) reception under nonlinear fading channels. Since the BER performance especially in the presence of nonlinear fading channels is mostly obtained by time-consuming computer simulations, we provide the simple analytical tool in order to prevent its computational cost. The feature of the proposed formula is to be represented by the simple series form formula without any integral calculation and to be applicable to arbitrary modulation schemes. The validity of the proposed approach is confirmed by the agreement with the computer simulation results under various kinds of system parameters such as the input back-off (IBO) and the number of branches.