Capacity of MRC on Correlated Rician Fading Channels

Abstract—A new exact explicit expression is derived for the ergodic capacity of maximal ratio combining (MRC) schemes over arbitrarily correlated Rician fading channels. This is used to study the effects of channel correlation on the ergodic capacity. Numerical results reveal that both the phase and the magnitude of correlation have an impact on the ergodic capacity of Rician fading channels. This is in contrast to correlated Rayleigh fading, where the phase of the correlation has no effect on the ergodic capacity. It is also observed that negatively correlated branches in Rician fading may lead to an increase in ergodic capacity beyond that obtained by uncorrelated branches. Index Terms—Channel capacity, maximal ratio combining (MRC), Rician fading, correlated fading, wireless SIMO systems. I