An Alternative Method to Compute the Bit Error Probability of Modulation Schemes Subject to Nakagami-m Fading

This paper presents an alternative method for determining exact expressions for the bit error probability (BEP) of modulation schemes subject to Nakagami-m fading. In this method, the Nakagami-m fading channel is seen as an additive noise channel whose noise is modeled as the ratio between Gaussian and Nakagami-m random variables. The method consists of using the cumulative density function of the resulting noise to obtain closed-form expressions for the BEP of modulation schemes subject to Nakagamim fading. In particular, the proposed method is used to obtain closed-form expressions for the BEP of M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM), M-ary pulse amplitude modulation (M-PAM), and rectangular quadrature amplitude modulation (I × JQAM) under Nakagami-m fading. The main contribution of this paper is to show that this alternative method can be used to reduce the computational complexity for detecting signals in the presence of fading.