Performance Analysis of MIMO-MRC in Double-Correlated Rayleigh Environments

We consider multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmit beamforming systems with maximum ratio combining (MRC) receivers. The operating environment is Rayleigh-fading with both transmit and receive spatial correlation. We present exact expressions for the probability density function (p.d.f.) of the output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), as well as the system outage probability. The results are based on explicit closed-form expressions which we derive for the p.d.f. and c.d.f. of the maximum eigenvalue of double-correlated complex Wishart matrices. For systems with two antennas at either the transmitter or the receiver, we also derive exact closed-form expressions for the symbol error rate (SER). The new expressions are used to prove that MIMO-MRC achieves the maximum available spatial diversity order, and to demonstrate the effect of spatial correlation. The analysis is validated through comparison with Monte-Carlo simulations.