Exact Closed-Form ABER for Multi-Hop Regenerative Relay Systems over ?-? Fading

Abstract

A new exact closed-form expression for average bit error rate (ABER) for multi-hop decode-and-forward relay systems with quadrature amplitude modulation scheme over ?-? fading channels is presented. The analysis uses the cumulative distribution function based approach to obtain ABER expression. Further, a simple asymptotic ABER expression is derived which is useful to determine coding gain and diversity order. The asymptotic ABER analysis shows that the diversity order is determined by the most severely faded link, while the coding gain is affected by the total transmission power of the system. Numerical examples are verified by simulation. � 2017 IEEE.