The symmetrical n-k distribution

This paper specializes and parameterizes the general result presented elsewhere in the literature in order to propose, fully characterize, and investigate the symmetrical n-k distribution. It yields estimators for the involved parameters and uses field measurements to validate the distribution. The symmetrical n-k distribution includes, as special cases, important distributions such as Rayleigh, Rice, Hoyt, Nakagami-q, and one-sided Gaussian. The fact that the symmetrical n-k distribution has one more parameter than the well-known distributions renders it more flexible. Of course, in situations in which those distributions included in it give good results a better fitting is given by the symmetrical n-k distribution. In addition, in many other situations in which these distributions give poor results a good fitting may be found through the symmetrical n-k distribution. More specifically, its non-monomodal feature finds applications in several circumstances, examples of which are given in this paper.