Coded error performance of MIMO systems in frequency selective Nakagami fading channels

In this paper, we have analyzed the convolutional coded error performance of a 2D-RAKE receiver, in combination with transmit diversity on the downlink of a WCDMA system. The analyses assume correlated fading between receive antenna array elements, and an arbitrary number of independent but nonidentical resolvable multipaths combined by the RAKE receiver in the general Nakagami-m fading channel framework. The closed form expression of pairwise error probability is given in the simple form of a single finite limit integral, with the integrand being an elementary function of array configuration parameters, spatial correlation and operating environment factors. It is shown that the combination of coding and spatial-path combining lead to dramatic performance improvement in various fading environments.