On the estimation of the K parameter for the rice fading distribution

In this letter we study the statistical performance of two moment-based est imators for the K parameter of Rice fading distribution, as less complex al ternatives to the maximum-likelihood estimator. Our asymptotic analysis rev eals that both estimators are nearly asymptotically efficient, and that the re is a compromise between the computational simplicity and the statistical efficiency of these two estimators. We also show, by Monte Carlo simulatio n, that the fading correlation among the envelope samples deteriorates the performance of both estimators. However, the simpler estimator, which emplo ys the second and the fourth moments of the signal envelope, appears to be more suitable for real-world applications.