Unified Analysis of Diversity Reception in the Presence of Impulsive Noise

We consider a single-input-multiple-output (SIMO) system over generalized and composite fading channels using the mixture Gamma (MG) distribution in the presence of impulsive noise, which is modeled by the Middleton's Class-A (MCA) and -mixture noise models. First, we develop a simple and effective information-theoretic approach to determine the optimal number of components for the MG distribution based on the Bayesian information criterion. We then derive novel pairwise error probability (PEP) expressions for the considered system with maximal-ratio combining and selection combining at the receiver. The derived PEP expressions involve finite singlefold integrals, which are further simplified to rather more tractable expressions that are applicable for the special case of integer values of the scale parameter β_k. Furthermore, we provide analytical tractable expressions for the average channel capacity under the impulsive noise assumption for the considered system. Analytical and Monte Carlo simulation analyses are presented to validate the analytical results.