Error rate of OFDM signals on frequency selective Nakagami-m fading channel

The error rates of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals on frequency selective Nakagami-m fading channels are considered. The exact probability density function of a sum of Nakagami-m random vectors is used to derive a closed-form expression for the error rate of OFDM signals. The exact error rate analysis is also extended to a system using multichannel reception with maximal ratio combining. Our analysis and numerical results show that the error rates obtained using a previous Nakagami-m approximation can be unreliable. It is observed that, depending on the number of channel taps, the error rate performance may degrade with increasing values of Nakagami fading parameters.