Multihop Weibull-fading communications: Performance analysis framework and applications

The paper presents a comprehensive closed-form performance analysis framework for multihop com-munications over Weibull fading channels. This framework may be of interest in different applications in the contexts of beyond-5G (B5G) and Internet of Things (IoT) use cases. The analyzed scheme consists generally of multiple regenerative relays, and we also consider generalized high-order quadra-ture amplitude modulation (M-QAM) transmissions. To take into consideration the channel fading, we adopt the Weibull model for its largely flexible ability to cover different channel conditions in different application contexts. The end-to-end performance is evaluated in terms of outage probability, bit error probability (BER), symbol error probability (SER), block error rate (BLER), ergodic capacity, and en-ergy efficiency (EE). For all the metrics, we present exact closed-form expressions & mdash;along with their asymptotic behavior & mdash;capitalizing on the powerful generalized hypergeometric functions. To illustrate the utility of the obtained analytical results, we derive two BER-and EE-optimal transmit power al-location strategies, and we discuss the resulting performance gains. The exactness of our analysis is illustrated by numerical examples, and assessed via Monte-Carlo simulations for different system and channel parameters. Finally, as a secondary contribution, and noting the increasing popularity of single and bivariate Fox & rsquo;s H-function, we provide generalized MATLAB codes for computing these functions which are of practical utility in many fields. (c) 2021 The Franklin Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 <comment>Superscript/Subscript Available</comment