Impact of scattering on the capacity, diversity, and propagation range of multiple-antenna channels

The impact of scattering condition and array configuration on performances are inseparable in early analyses of multiple-antenna systems. An array-independent scattering model is introduced where three basic scattering mechanisms are modeled. Performance results become more intrinsic property of the scattering channel itself. For linear arrays of length L in an environment of total angle spread |Omega|, the ergodic capacity is shown to increase linearly with L|Omega| for large arrays. When antenna arrays reduce to practical sizes, the capacity scaling depends on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as well. This implies that the number of antennas used should also depend on the SNR. In terms of outage capacity, the tradeoff between spatial multiplexing gain and diversity gain is shown to be very sensitive to the underlying scattering mechanisms. Finally, as |Omega| varies with the propagation range, the tradeoff among multiplexing gain, diversity gain, and propagation range is studied