Level crossing rate and average fade duration in MIMO mobile fading channels

In this paper, important dynamic characteristics of MIMO mobile fading channels such as the level crossing rate (LCR) and average fade durations (AFD) are studied. Depending on the application, either a scalar crossing approach or a vector crossing approach is taken and appropriate definitions for LCR and AFD in MIMO channels are provided. The more general concept of average stay duration (ASD) is also defined. Closed-from solutions for scalar MIMO LCR and vector MIMO ASD are presented and illustrated via numerical examples. Finally, the utility of the new definitions and results, when applied to adaptive modulation in MIMO channels, Markov modeling, and the block fading approximation of MIMO channels are discussed as well.