Outage probability of cellular radio systems using maximal ratio combining in the presence of multiple interferers

In mobile radio systems, antenna diversity is used to combat fading and reduce the impact of cochannel interference. We derived a new expression for probability density functions of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio and apply it to analyze the outage probability (OTP) for a maximal ratio combining diversity system when multiple cochannel interferers are present. Numerical results showing the impact of the number of antenna elements, the number of cochannel interferers, and signal-to-noise ratio on the OTP are presented. Simulation results validating the analytical results are also presented.