Error Rates Analysis of MIMO Space-Time Block Codes in Generalized Shadowed Fading Channels

Abstract: This paper introduces a new and unified bit error rates performance analysis of space-time block codes (STBC) deployed in wireless systems with spatial diversity in generalized shadowed fading and noise scenarios. Specifically, we derive a simple and a very accurate approximate expressions for the average error rates of coherent modulation schemes in generalized $\eta-\mu$ and $\kappa-\mu$ shadowed fading channels with multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems. The noise in the network is assumed to be modeled using the additive white generalized Gaussian noise (AWGGN), which encompasses the classical Laplacian and the Gaussian noise environments as special cases. The derived results obviate the need to re-derive the error rates for MIMO STBC systems under many multipath fading and noise conditions while avoiding any special functions with high computational complexity. Published results from the literature, as well as numerical evaluations, corroborate the accuracy of our derived generalized expressions.