Arogyaswami Paulraj

An overview of MIMO communications - a key to gigabit wireless

High data rate wireless communications, nearing 1 Gb/s transmission rates, is of interest in emerging wireless local area networks and home audio/visual networks. Designing very high speed wireless links that offer good quality-of-service and range capability in non-line-of-sight (NLOS) environments constitutes a significant research and engineering challenge. Ignoring fading in NLOS environments, we can, in principle, meet the 1 Gb/s data rate requirement with a single-transmit single-receive antenna wireless system if the product of bandwidth (measured in hertz) and spectral efficiency (measured in bits per second per hertz) is equal to 10/sup 9/. A variety of cost, technology and regulatory constraints make such a brute force solution unattractive, if not impossible. The use of multiple antennas at transmitter and receiver, popularly known as multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless, is an emerging cost-effective technology that offers substantial leverages in making 1 Gb/s wireless links a reality. The paper provides an overview of MIMO wireless technology covering channel models, performance limits, coding, and transceiver design.

On the capacity of OFDM-based spatial multiplexing systems

This paper deals with the capacity behavior of wireless orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)-based spatial multiplexing systems in broad-band fading environments for the case where the channel is unknown at the transmitter and perfectly known at the receiver. Introducing a physically motivated multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) broad-band fading channel model, we study the influence of physical parameters such as the amount of delay spread, cluster angle spread, and total angle spread, and system parameters such as the number of antennas and antenna spacing on ergodic capacity and outage capacity. We find that, in the MIMO case, unlike the single-input single-output (SISO) case, delay spread channels may provide advantages over flat fading channels not only in terms of outage capacity but also in terms of ergodic capacity. Therefore, MIMO delay spread channels will in general provide both higher diversity gain and higher multiplexing gain than MIMO flat fading channels

Generalized linear precoder and decoder design for MIMO channels using the weighted MMSE criterion

We address the problem of designing jointly optimum linear precoder and decoder for a MIMO channel possibly with delay-spread, using a weighted minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) criterion subject to a transmit power constraint. We show that the optimum linear precoder and decoder diagonalize the MIMO channel into eigen subchannels, for any set of error weights. Furthermore, we derive the optimum linear precoder and decoder as functions of the error weights and consider specialized designs based on specific choices of error weights. We show how to obtain: (1) the maximum information rate design; (2) QoS-based design (we show how to achieve any set of relative SNRs across the subchannels); and (3) the (unweighted) MMSE and equal-error design for fixed rate systems.

ESPRIT--A subspace rotation approach to estimation of parameters of cisoids in noise

The application of a subspace invariance approach (ESPRIT) to the estimation of parameters (frequencies and powers) of cisoids in noise is described. ESPRIT exploits an underlying rotational invariance of signal subspaces spanned by two temporally displaced data sets. The new approach has several advantages including improved resolution over Pisarenkos technique for harmonic retrieval.

Antenna selection for spatial multiplexing systems with linear receivers

Future cellular systems will employ spatial multiplexing with multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver to take advantage of large capacity gains. In such systems it will be desirable to select a subset of available transmit antennas for link initialization, maintenance or handoff. We present a criterion for selecting the optimal antenna subset when linear, coherent receivers are used over a slowly varying channel. We propose use of the post-processing SNRs (signal to noise ratios) of the multiplexed streams whereby the antenna subset that induces the largest minimum SNR is chosen. Simulations demonstrate that our selection algorithm also provides diversity advantage thus making linear receivers useful over fading channels.

A fourth-generation MIMO-OFDM broadband wireless system: design, performance, and field trial results

Increasing demand for high-performance 4G broadband wireless is enabled by the use of multiple antennas at both base station and subscriber ends. Multiple antenna technologies enable high capacities suited for Internet and multimedia services, and also dramatically increase range and reliability. In this article we describe a multiple-input multiple-output OFDM wireless communication system, lab test results, and field test results obtained in San Jose, California. These are the first MIMO system field tests to establish the performance of MIMO communication systems. Increased capacity, coverage, and reliability are clearly evident from the test results presented in this article.

Capacity improvement with base-station antenna arrays in cellular CDMA

The use of an antenna array at a base-station for cellular CDMA is studied. The authors present a performance analysis for a multicell CDMA network with an antenna array at the base-station for use in both base-station to mobile (downlink) and mobile to base-station (uplink) links. They model the effects of path loss, Rayleigh fading, log-normal shadowing, multiple access interference, and thermal noise, and show that by using an antenna array at the base-station, both in receive and transmit, one can increase system capacity several fold. Simulation results are presented to support the claims. >

MIMO antenna subset selection with space-time coding

This paper treats multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna subset selection employing space-time coding. We consider two cases differentiated based on the type of channel knowledge used in the selection process. We address both the selection algorithms and the performance analysis. We first consider the case when the antenna subsets are selected based on exact channel knowledge (ECK). Our results assume the transmission of orthogonal space-time block codes (with emphasis on the Alamouti (see IEEE J. Select. Areas Commun., vol.16, p.1451-68, Oct. 1998) code). Next, we treat the case of antenna subset selection when statistical channel knowledge (SCK) is employed by the selection algorithm. This analysis is applicable to general space-time coding schemes. When ECK is available, we show that the selection algorithm chooses the antenna set that maximizes the channel Frobenius norm leading to both coding and diversity gain. When SCK is available, the selection algorithm chooses the antenna set that maximizes the determinant of the covariance of the vectorized channel leading mostly to a coding gain. In case of ECK-based selection, we provide analytical expressions for average SNR and outage probability improvement. For the case when SCK-based selection is used, we derive expressions for coding gain. We also present extensive simulation studies, validating our results.

Space-frequency coded broadband OFDM systems

Space-time coding for fading channels is a communication technique that realizes the diversity benefits of multiple transmit antennas. Previous work in this area has focused on the narrowband flat fading case where spatial diversity only is available. We investigate the use of space-time coding in OFDM-based broadband systems where both spatial and frequency diversity are available. We consider a strategy which basically consists of coding across OFDM tones and is therefore called space-frequency coding. For a spatial broadband channel model taking into account physical propagation parameters and antenna spacing, we derive the design criteria for space-frequency codes and we show that space-time codes designed to achieve full spatial diversity in the narrowband case will in general not achieve full space-frequency diversity. Specifically, we show that the Alamouti (see IEEE J. Sel. Areas Comm., vol.16, p.1451-58, 1998) scheme across tones fails to exploit frequency diversity. For a given set of propagation parameters and given antenna spacing, we establish the maximum achievable diversity order. Finally, we provide simulation results studying the influence of delay spread, propagation parameters, and antenna spacing on the performance of space-frequency codes.

An analytical constant modulus algorithm

Iterative constant modulus algorithms such as Godard (1980) and CMA have been used to blindly separate a superposition of cochannel constant modulus (CM) signals impinging on an antenna array. These algorithms have certain deficiencies in the context of convergence to local minima and the retrieval of all individual CM signals that are present in the channel. We show that the underlying constant modulus factorization problem is, in fact, a generalized eigenvalue problem, and may be solved via a simultaneous diagonalization of a set of matrices. With this new analytical approach, it is possible to detect the number of CM signals present in the channel, and to retrieve all of them exactly, rejecting other, non-CM signals. Only a modest amount of samples is required. The algorithm is robust in the presence of noise and is tested on measured data collected from an experimental set-up.