A Study on the Channel Capacity of Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) Wireless System

The use of multiple antennas at both ends of a wireless link such as multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems are now expected to hold the potential to drastically improve the spectral efficiency and link reliability in the future wireless communications. This is due to the fact that a MIMO channel can offer a capacity gain over a traditional single-input single-output (SISO) channel. These spectral efficiency gains often require accurate knowledge of the channel at the receiver, and some times at the transmitter as well. In this paper, we present the concept and discuss some ongoing research directions on the channel capacity of a MIMO wireless system. Preliminary simulations show linear increasing results in spectral efficiency of MIMO with an arbitrary number of transmit or receive antennas.