Simple tight approximations of the error performance for dual-hop MIMO relay systems in Rayleigh fading

In this paper we present tight approximations of the error performance for the entire signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) range of practical interest for an amplify and forward (AF) relaying system with channel state information (CSI) at the relay and destination, which employs multiple antennas at the nodes and orthogonal space-time block coding (OSTBC) transmission over a flat Rayleigh fading. Additionally, for a high value SNR range, we simplified the tight approximation expression in the simple asymptotic expression. The comparison of the error performance obtained by those two approximations with the error performance obtained by numeric integration of moment generating functions (MGF) and by Monte Carlo simulations shows close matching of the results.