Estimation of the local mean power over Nakagami fading channels

Accurate and fast algorithms for the local mean level estimation are very important for the successful implementation of many wireless communication enabling techniques such as handoff, power control, and automatic gain control schemes. In this paper, we present maximum likelihood as well as minimum variance unbiased estimators for the local mean signal decibel power. We consider a generalized Nakagami-m fading environment and show that these estimators are asymptotically efficient in the number of samples and in the fading parameter m. Numerical and simulation results confirm that these estimators clearly outperform the sample mean estimators and quickly approach Cramer-Rao lower bounds.