MIMO capacity, level crossing rates and fades: The impact of spatial/temporal channel correlation

It is well known that Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems offer the promise of achieving very high spectrum efficiencies (many tens of bit/s/Hz) in a mobile environment. The gains in MIMO capacity are sensitive to the presence of spatial and temporal correlation introduced by the radio environment. In this paper, we examine how MIMO capacity is influenced by a number of factors e.g., a) temporal correlation b) various combinations of low/high spatial correlations at either end, c) combined spatial and temporal correlations. In all cases, we compare the channel capacity that would be achievable under independent fading. We investigate the behaviour of “capacity fades,” examine how often the capacity experiences the fades, develop a method to determine level crossing rates and average fade durations and relate these to antenna numbers. We also evaluate the influence of channel correlation on the capacity autocorrelation and assess the fit of a Gaussian random process to the temporal capacity sequence. Finally we note that the particular spatial correlation structure of the MIMO channel is influenced by a large number of factors. For simplicity, it is desirable to use a single overall correlation measure which parameterizes the effect of correlation on capacity. We verify this single parameter concept by simulating a large number of different spatially correlated channels.