Summary
The performance of radioâfrequency (RF) networks where channels are modeled by an extendedâgeneralizedâK (EGK) distribution and consider significant phase errors during coherent detection at the receiver due to carrierâphaseâsynchronizationâmismatch is investigated in this work. The performance is evaluated for a singleâhop link and twoâhop amplifyâandâforward (AF) and decodeâandâforward (DF) relayâassisted RF links. The EGK is a generalized distribution, which can model various fading conditions in millimeter (mm)âwave wireless channels where transmission frequency is 60âGHz and above and takes into account nonâhomogeneous propagation, interference effects in a multiuser transmission environment, multipath fading and shadowing effects. The average symbol error probability (ASEP) performance is evaluated for a singleâhop link when carrier is modulated using multilevel PSK modulation scheme. Based on the analytical results obtained for a singleâhop link, the mathematical analysis for the error performance in widely employed AF and DF relayâassisted RF twoâhop networks is developed and ASEP is derived. To quantify the degradation in system performance introduced by phase errors, the referenceâcarrier phase estimation loss for a singleâhop RF link is also evaluated. The obtained analytical results are also verified by numerical plots and depict the effects of various channel conditions existing over the RF link and phase synchronization errors.