A fast sub-optimal antenna selection algorithm in mimo systems

MIMO systems can offer high multiplexing and diversity gain, but the increased complexity hampers the practical applications. Through antenna selection, the complexity and cost can be greatly reduced while the gain of MIMO systems can be reserved. In this paper, a fast sub-optimal antenna selection algorithm based on norm and correlation is proposed for maximizing the channel capacity. Compared with the near-optimal selection algorithm of M. Gharavi-Alkhansari and A. Greshman (2004), our sub-optimal algorithm can capture most of the capacity property while the complexity and memory requirement are greatly decreased. Simulation results show that our algorithm is very effective when SNR is high and the number of the selected antennas is relatively small. Especially for a rank deficient channel matrix, the sub-optimal algorithm outperforms the norm-based selection algorithm. Our algorithm also shows capacity advantages when compared with the correlation based method (CBM) algorithm of Y.S. Choi et al. (2003)