Exact BER for M-QAM with MRC and Imperfect Channel Estimation in Rician Fading Channels

In this paper, we study the effect of imperfect channel estimation (ICE) on the performance of M-level quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM) with maximum ratio combining (MRC) and pilot-symbol assisted modulation (PSAM) in generalized Rician fading channels. By expressing the bit error rate (BER) of MRC diversity M-QAM in terms of the distribution of new decision variables, we derive novel, exact, and easy-to-evaluate BER expressions for diversity M-QAM with channel estimation errors. Our results include versatile system and fading channel parameters (e.g., arbitrary spatial and temporal correlation patterns among the diversity branches), and are valid for arbitrary linear channel estimators and square and rectangular M -QAM with different constellation sizes. In addition, we evaluate the performance of minimum mean-squared error (MMSE)- and sinc-interpolator-based channel estimators with PSAM, and provide some new insights into the performance of M-QAM with PSAM in generalized fading channels