Diversity order analysis of orthogonal space–time block coding over keyhole fading channels with antenna selection

Although there are many research results for the keyhole fading channels in the current literature, fewer results have investigated the antenna selection scheme and quantified the diversity order. In this letter, we first derive some simple statistics of the output signal‐to‐noise ratio for the orthogonal space–time block coding over keyhole fading channels. On the basis of these results, we derive an approximate BER expression for the keyhole MIMO channels with receive antenna selection scheme. Results show that the diversity order with receive antenna selection is min{n_R,n_T}for n_R ≠ n_T, which means that the full diversity order with antenna selection is maintained. Finally, numerical results demonstrate the accuracy of our analytical expressions and the tightness of approximate formulas. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.