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.