A performance analysis of two hybrid selective combining/maximal ratio comb
ining (SC/MRC) diversity receivers over Nakagami-m fading channels with a f
lat multipath intensity profile is presented and numerically compared with
that of the conventional SC and MRC schemes. Numerical results for particul
ar cases of interest show that the bit error rate (BER) degradation arising
from the use of hybrid SC/MRC instead of MRC is independent of the average
signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regardless of the severity of the fading and t
hat MRC provides a higher rate of improvement than the hybrid SC/MRC as the
severity of fading decreases.