A simple beamforming-SIMO merger in spatially correlated channel via virtual channel representation

In this paper, we introduce a simple merger of beamforming (BF) and maximal ratio combining (MRC) in single-input-multi-output (SIMO) wireless communication systems. It is well known that either BF or MRC in SIMO systems does not perform properly in spatially correlated channels, because the former assumes completely coherent fades over the entire antenna elements while the latter assumes independent fades. Here, we study a merger of BF and SIMO via virtual channel representation (VCR). VCR is used as a consistent description of coherent, correlated and independent channels to derive the proposed algorithm. Specifically, this study is performed for a simple SIMO system which leads to high performance gains in spatially correlated channels. The study can be easily generalized to Multi-Input-Multi-Output (MIMO) systems. This approach replaces the traditional channel codes by complex codes generated via signal-to-noise (SNR) optimization at the receiver