The I/Q unbalance which is generated by a non-ideal component is an inevitable physical phenomenon and leads to performance degradation when we implement a practical two-dimensional (2-D) modulation system. In this paper, we provide an exact and general expression involving the 2-D Gaussian Q-function for the SER/BER of arbitrary 2-D signaling with I/Q amplitude and phase unbalances over an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel by using the coordinate rotation and shifting technique. Through Monte Carlo simulations we verify our expression provided here for 16-star Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM).

We derive and analyze a bit error rate (BER) expression of a Gray coded rectangular QAM (R-QAM) signal with maximal ratio combining (MRC) diversity reception over Nakagami-n (Rician) fading channels. The derived result is provided in terms of the Whittaker function and the confluent hypergeometric function. Because the derived expression is general, it can readily allow numerical evaluation for various cases of practical interest such as line-of-sight (LOS) or satellite communication channel analysis.

General closed-form expressions are derived and analyzed for the exact bit error rate (BER) performance of the arbitrary rectangular Gray coded QAM signal in conjunction with maximal-ratio combining (MRC) diversity on frequency non-selective slow m-distributed Nakagami fading channel. The analyses consider four channel models, independent and identical, independent and nonidentical, identical but correlated, and arbitrary correlated fading. Numerical results demonstrate error performance improvement with the use of MRC diversity reception. The new expressions presented here are suitable for evaluating various cases of practical interest on wireless communication channels.