Performance analysis of IEEE 802.11n solutions combining MIMO architectures with iterative decoding and sub-optimal ML detection via MMSE and zero forcing GIS solutions

The paper presets the performance of two newly proposed IEEE 802.11n candidate solutions by suggesting extensions to 802.11a. The new solutions incorporate a MIMO architecture for the wireless links between the network terminals. The FEC block in the PHY layer chain is also enhanced with a Turbo encoder to provide interleaving gains for the larger sized PSDUs (1-4095 bytes). Due to the ambitious data rate targets identified in 802.11n, where ´on-air´ data rates of up to 320 Mbit/s are quoted, a large MIMO architecture comprising 6 transmit and 6 receive antenna elements is adopted. ML detection using such large configurations is often prohibitively complex due to an unrealistic enumerated symbol list. In this paper we propose zero-forcing and MMSE-GIS solutions to ease complexity at the receiver. PER results for these new schemes are presented and Link throughputs are compared to demonstrate the viability of the chosen solutions and their benefits over the existing 802.11a standard.