Impact of spatial correlation in the fading channel on the performance of a multi-antenna system

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems can deliver the maximum capacity potential in an ideal channel with rich scattering and uncorrelated fading between paths. Fading correlation is an undesirable effect arising from factors in the propagation environment and the geometry of the antenna arrays. We study the impact of fading correlation on the error-rate performance of a space-time trellis-coded multi-antenna system, under a range of correlation levels at the transmit and receive ends, and identify trends from the observations.