Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008 223

MIMO Channel Model and Its Impact on the Channel Capacity

Jun Wang, Quan Zhou, Wei Ma, and Lede Qiu
National Key Laboratory of Space Microwave Technology
Xi’an Institute of Space Radio Technology, Xi’an 710100, China

Abstract— In order to study the impacts of array configuration and channel model parameters
including antenna spacing and scattering angle on the channel capacity of an S-MIMO (Satellite
Multiple Input Multiple Output) system, a novel method is proposed to explore the channel
capacity under flat fading. A novel channel model is constructed based on the fading correlation
matrix which depends on the array configuration. And then using the properties of Wishart
distribution, closed-form expressions for the upper and lower bounds on the ergodic capacity of
N by M MIMO system are presented in detail. The novel method also could be generalized to
MIMO-OFDM systems with any number of transmit and receive antennas. Computer simulation
results show that for small spacing the UCA yields higher channel capacity than ULA. The
channel capacity is maximized when the antenna spacing increases to a certain point, and further
more, the larger the scattering angle, the quicker the channel capacity converges to its maximum.
And at high SNR, the upper and lower bounds on the ergodic capacity are close to its true value.

1. INTRODUCTION
Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) using multiple antennae simultaneously at both end in
a wireless system has been shown to significantly improve spectrum efficiency of communication
systems over traditional Single Input Single Output (SISO) systems. Theoretical work of [1] and [2]
proved that if the fades between different pairs of transmit-receive antenna elements are independent
and identical Rayleigh and receiver knows the channel perfectly, the channel capacity increases
linearly with the minimum of the number of transmit and receive antennas.
In satellite systems, how to use the limited resource to increase the system performance is the
important problem. Many authors [3, 4] proposed that future land mobile satellite systems can
take advantage of MIMO technology to boost data-rates in resource limited allocated spectrum.
Although the land mobile satellite channel at low elevation is harsh, a significant increase in capacity
can be achieved using space time coding from a single satellite MIMO system.
In real propagation environments, correlation exists between the fades of deferent antenna ele-
ments due to the antenna spacing and the surroundings around antenna arrays are insufficient. This
can cause the channel capacity of MIMO systems reduce significantly. In [5] the statistical model
of the fading correlation is constructed and the asymptotic channel capacity is investigated when
the number of antennas is infinite using random matrices theory. According to [6], the closed-form
expression of MIMO systems can be derived using the probability density function of eigenvalues
of Wishart matrix. But the computational complexity is very high. In [6] and [7] the upper and
lower bounds on the ergodic capacity of MIMO system are presented, and the results shown that
the upper and lower bounds are close to its real value.
In this paper, we develop a method based on the receive UCA to investigate the channel capacity
and analyze the impacts of antenna spacing and scattering angel on the capacity of S-MIMO
systems. In addition, we introduce the properties of Wishart distribution to derive the upper
and lower bounds in detail, which can reduce the computational complexity significantly. We also
investigate the impacts of array configuration and channel model parameters including antenna
spacing and scattering angle on the channel capacity of S-MIMO systems.

2. THE CHANNEL MODEL AND CAPACITY OF S-MIMO SYSTEMS

In the following, we assume: (1) M and N denote the number of transmit and receive antennae,
respectively. (2) a single user in the system and employ the narrowband Rayleigh MIMO channel.
(3) uniform circular antenna or uniform linear antenna is used at the receiver. (4) H is the matrix
channel impulse, n is the M × 1 zero mean and unit variance additive white Gaussian noise vector.
(5) AOA distribution is uniform and the central AOA is denoted as Θ, and the angle of arrival is
uniform distribution in [Θ − ∆, Θ + ∆], the radius of UCA is r, the angle that each element location
makes with the horizontal axis is ϕi , the angle spread is ∆.
224 PIERS Proceedings, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008

The spatial fading correlation between the mth and nth antenna element is defined as
Z ∆ µ µ ¶· µ ¶
1 j4πr ϕn − ϕm ϕn + ϕm
R(m, n) = exp sin sin z cos Θ −
2∆ −∆ λ 2 2
µ ¶¸¶
ϕn + ϕm
+ cos z sin Θ − dz
2
For the uplink, ∆ is usually small. We can approximate cos z ≈ 1 and sin z ≈ z which gives
R(m, n) = exp (j4πrα/λ) sin c (4rβ∆/λ) (1)
where α = sin ((ϕn − ϕm )/2) sin (Θ − (ϕn + ϕm )/2), β = sin ((ϕn − ϕm )/2) cos (Θ − (ϕn + ϕm )/2).
When ULA is used at the receiver, the spatial correlation between two elements a distance d
apart can be determined as
Z Θ+∆ µ ¶ µ ¶ µ ¶
1 2πd 2πd 2πd
R(d) = exp j sin(θ) dθ = exp j sin(Θ) sin c cos(Θ)∆ (2)
2∆ Θ−∆ λ λ λ
The spatial fading correlation matrix R is constructed based on (1) or (2).
And then the channel matrix can be written as
H = R1/2 U (3)
We assume the channel is perfectly known at the receiver but unknown at the transmitter. The
total power of the signal is constrained to P , regardless of the number of transmit antennas. The
channel capacity is given by
C = log2 (det(IM + ρHHT )) (4)
where IM is M × M identity matrix, T is denote conjugate transpose, ρ = P/N .
Using (3) and factorize R using the singular value decomposition, we get
³ ³ ´´
1/2 1/2
C = log2 det I + ρΛR WΛR (5)

For investigating the mean capacity of MIMO system, it is important to analyze the statistical
1/2 1/2
property of the eigenvalues of V = ΛR WΛR . It is known to all that W∼WM (N, I) and
using the properties of Wishart distribution, we get V∼WM (N, ΛR ). There exists the closed-
form expression for the joint probability density of the eigenvalues of V, but it is very difficult to
calculate the marginal pdf of the eigenvalues to derive the closed-form expression of the channel
capacity. So we will give the closed-form expressions for the upper and lower bounds on the mean
capacity and get some useful conclusions.
Noting logx is concave function in x, so E log x ≤ log Ex. Using this property, we can get
E(C) ≤ log2 E (det (I + ρV)) ≈ M log2 (ρ) + log2 (E (det V)) (6)
Wishart distribution has the property: if V is WM (N, ΛR ), then det (V)/det (ΛR ) has the
Q
M
same distribution as χ2N −k+1 , where the χ2N −k+1 for k = 1, . . . , M , denote independent χ2
k=1
random variables. Using this property, we can get
µ ¶Á µ ¶
M N N
E (det V) = det ΛR 2 ΓM +1 ΓM (7)
2 2
ÃM !,
X
E (log2 (det V)) = (ln (λi ) + ψ (N − i + 1)) ln 2 (8)
i=1

Using (7), then (6) can be written as

µ µ ¶ ¶ XM µ µ ¶Á µ ¶¶
P 1 1
E(C) ≤ M log2 +1 + log2 (λi ) + log2 ΓM N +1 ΓM N (9)
N 2 2
i=1
Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008 225

Q
M
where ΓM (a) = π M (M −1)/2 Γ (a − i + 1).
i=1
For a Hermitian matrix A, it is true that: det (I + A) ≥ det (A). From this property, we get
E (C) ≥ E (log2 (det (ρV))) (10)
using (8), we can lower bound E(C) as
à ÃM !!,
X
E (C) ≥ M ln (ρ) + (ln (λi ) + ψ (N − i + 1)) ln 2 (11)
i=1

where ψ(x) = Γ0 (x)/Γ(x).

3. SIMULATION
Simulation considers the narrowband single user S-MIMO system with M = 4 receive and N = 6
transmit antennae. The central angle of arrival is Θ = π/3, the radius of UCA is r, the receive
SNR is 20 dB.

Figure 1: Mean capacity of MIMO for various scat- Figure 2: Mean capacity of MIMO for various scat-
tering angels at Θ = π/3. tering angels at Θ = 0.

Figure 3: Channel capacity and its upper and lower bounds.

Figure 1 and Fig. 2 show the mean capacity of spatially correlated Rayleigh-fading MIMO
channels for different scattering angels. Note that for a four-element linear array, the√element
spacing is d = (2/3)r, while for the UCA, the minimum spacing between elements is 2r. As
shown, the channel capacity is maximized when the antenna spacing increases to a certain point,
226 PIERS Proceedings, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008

and further more, the larger the scattering angle is, the quicker the channel capacity converges
to its maximum is. And we also see that for small element spacing, when the scattering angle is
determined, the UCA outperforms the ULA.
Figure 3 shows the mean capacity and its upper and lower bounds of correlated Rayleigh-fading
MIMO channels. We can see that, at high SNR, the upper and lower bounds on the mean capacity
are close to its actual value.
4. CONCLUSIONS
We have constructed the statistical channel model based on fading correlation and developed a
method to investigate the capacity of S-MIMO systems. The method using the properties of
Wishart distribution to derive the closed-form expressions for the upper and lower bounds on the
ergodic capacity based on receive UCA. And we also investigate the impacts of array configuration
and channel model parameters including antenna spacing and scattering angle on the channel
capacity of a MIMO systems. Simulation results show that for small element spacing, when the
scattering angle is determined, the UCA outperforms the ULA. At high SNR, the upper and lower
bounds on the mean capacity are close to its actual value.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by the National Key Laboratory Foundation of China under Grant
9140C5303010703.
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