On the capacity of OFDM-based spatial multiplexing systems

Abstract

This paper deals with the capacity behavior of wireless orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)-based spatial multiplexing systems in broad-band fading environments for the case where the channel is unknown at the transmitter and perfectly known at the receiver. Introducing a physically motivated multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) broad-band fading channel model, we study the influence of physical parameters such as the amount of delay spread, cluster angle spread, and total angle spread, and system parameters such as the number of antennas and antenna spacing on ergodic capacity and outage capacity. We find that, in the MIMO case, unlike the single-input single-output (SISO) case, delay spread channels may provide advantages over flat fading channels not only in terms of outage capacity but also in terms of ergodic capacity. Therefore, MIMO delay spread channels will in general provide both higher diversity gain and higher multiplexing gain than MIMO flat fading channels