Estimation of Channel Capacity of MIMO Systems

Wen Geyi
Key Laboratory of Wave Scattering and Remote Sensing Information,
Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, P. R. China, Email: geyiwen@fudan.edu.cn


AbstractIn this article we present a method for evaluating the
channel matrix of an arbitrary MIMO system in a general
scattering environment by making use of a perturbation
technique. Analytical upper bounds on the capacity of the MIMO
system in scattering environment have been obtained.
Keywords-MIMO; capacity; antenna; channel matrix.
I. INTRODUCTION
To stretch Shannons limit for a single input and single
output system[1]-[2], one may use a multiple input and
multiple output system (MIMO)[3]-[14]. The block diagram of
a generic wireless MIMO system is shown in Figure 1, where
i
T ( 1, 2, ,
t r
i n n = + ) is the ith antenna terminal plane, and the
r
n outputs are terminated by loads
Li
Z at
i
T
( 1, ,
t t r
i n n n = + + ). For an
t r
n n MIMO system, we have
t
n transmitting antennas and
r
n receiving antennas. The input
signal to the transmit antenna system is denoted by a random
vector
1 2
( ) [ ( ), ( ), , ( )]
t
T
n
t x t x t x t = x , where T stands for the
transpose of matrix, and the output of the receive antenna
system is denoted by
1 2
( ) [ ( ), ( ), , ( )]
t
T
n
t y t y t y t = y . In most
applications, communications are carried out in a pass band
around a center frequency. In this case, one may write

Figure 1 Genetic Wireless MIMO system
( ) [ ] ( ) ( ) t H t t + y x z (1)
where [ ] [ ]
ij
H h = is the narrowband MIMO channel matrix,
and
1 2
( ) [ ( ), ( ), , ( )]
t t t r
T
n n n n
t z t z t z t
+ + +
= z is assumed to be an
additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) vector with zero mean.
In practice the transmitter has no channel knowledge and it
is reasonable to choose x to be spatially white (i.e., signals
transmitted by each antenna are independent) and use a
uniform power distribution (i.e., each antenna is equi-
powered). Thus the correlation matrix of x is given by
[ ] ( / )[ ]
t
t n
R P n I =
xx
. In this case, the capacity (in bit/s/Hz) for
a complex AWGN MIMO channel can be expressed as


2 2
log det [ ] [ ][ ] log det [ ] [ ] [ ] .
r t
n n
t t
P P
C I H H I H H
n n
= + = +
| | | |
| |
\ . \ .
(2)
When the channel is known at the transmitter, the capacity
will be higher and the maximum capacity can be achieved by
using the water-filling principle, where power is unevenly
distributed among the transmitting antennas [3].
Since

[ ] [ ] H H and

[ ][ ] H H are positive definite, it

follows from Hadamards inequality that [7]
2
2 ( ) 2
1 1
max log 1
t r
t
n n
n i j
j i
t
P
C C S
n
+
= =
| |
= +
|
\ .

(3)
2
2 ( ) 2
1 1
max log 1
t r
t
n n
n j i
j i
t
P
C C S
n
+
= =
| |
= +
|
\ .

(4)
The right-hand sides are upper bounds on the information
capacity of the MIMO system.
A MIMO system is a multi-port electrical network. It can
be shown that the channel matrix H can be identified as the
scattering matrix of the multiple antenna system. This
identification allows us to determine the channel matrix from
electromagnetic theory[7]. Consider a system consisting of n
antennas. Let the fields generated by antenna i ( 1, 2, , i n = )
when antenna j ( j i ) are receiving with all scatterers being
in place be denoted by ,
i i
E H . It is easy to show that [16]
( ) ( )
1
( )
2
i
ij i j j i n i j
i j S
h dS
a a

=
}
E H E H u (5)
where
i
S is a closed surface containing antenna i only. Note
that the fields { } ,
i i
E H should be determined with all antenna
elements and scatters being in place.
II. CHANNEL MATRIX IN A SCATTERING ENVIRIONMENT
To predict how the MIMO channel matrix changes with
environments, the general equation (5) can be used via
numerical simulations with all scatterers being in place.
Consider an arbitrary region
p
V enclosed by a surface
p
S in
which the medium is assumed to be linear, isotropic and free
of impressed source. The medium in
p
V may be
This work was supported by Huawei Innovation Research Fund.
75 978-1-4244-9561-0/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE AP-S/URSI 2011
inhomogeneous with a permeability , permittivity , and
conductivity . Figure 2 shows any two antenna element i
and j and the region
p
V , where the changes of medium
parameters take place. Two scenarios will be considered:

Figure 2 Coupling between two antenna elements in a
scattering environment
Scenario 1: The medium parameters are assumed to be ,
and . The antenna i produces the fields
i
E and
i
H when
the rest are receiving. The transmission coefficient between
antenna i and antenna ( ) j j i is denoted by
ij
h .
Scenario 2: The medium parameters , and in
p
V are
changed to , and respectively. The antenna i
produces the fields
i
E and
i
H when all other antennas are
receiving. The transmission coefficient between antenna i and
antenna ( ) j j i is denoted by
ij
h . By means of the
compensation theorem, one may show that [16]
{
[ ] }
( ) ( )
1
( )
2
( ) ,
p
ij ij i j i j
i j V
i j
h h j
a a
j dV


=
+
}
H H
E E
(6)

( ) ( )
1
( ) .
2
p
ij ij j i i j n i j
i j S
h h dS
a a
=
}
E H E H u (7)
Note that only the field components tangential to
p
S
contribute to (7). Let
s
Z and
s
Z be the surface impedances
before and after the change of the medium parameters
respectively. Then we have ( ) ( )
jt s n jt
Z = E r u H r ,
( ) ( )
jt s n jt
Z = E r u H r and (7) may be rewritten as

( ) ( )
1
( ) ,
2
p
ij ij s s it jt i j
i j S
h h Z Z dS
a a
=
}
H H (8)
where the subscript t is used to represent the tangential
component.
If there exist m scatterers and each scatterer occupies a
region
p
V ( 1, 2, , p m = ), then the integrations in (6)-(7)
become a summation of integrations over each scatterer. For
instance, (6) may be written as
{
[ ] }
( ) ( )
1
1
( )
2
( )
p
m
ij ij i j i j
p
i j V
i j
h h j
a a
j dV


=
= +
+

}
H H
E E
(9)
The first term of (9) corresponds to the contribution due to the
direct path from antenna i to antenna j . The second term
represents the m multipath components introduced by the m
scatterers. From (3) and (4), the maximum possible capacity of
a MIMO system in a scattering environment is thus given by
( )
( )
2
2 ( ) 2
1 1
2
2 ( ) 2
1 1
max log 1 max
log 1 max
t r
t
t r
t
n n
n i j
j i t
n n
n j i
j i
t
P
C h
n
P
h
n

+
= =
+
= =
(
= +
(

(
= +
(



(10)

III. ESTIMATION OF CHANNEN MATRIX
So far our analysis is exact. The computation of the fields
{ } ,
i i
E H ( 1, 2, , i n = ) in (5) with antenna ( ) j j i and all
scatterers being in place is not an easy task, and one must
resort to numerical methods in order to obtain the channel
matrix elements
ij
h . When the separations between antennas
are large enough and all antennas are in free space (i.e., there
are no scatterers), one may neglect the reflections between
antennas and use the following simplification: the calculation
of { } ,
i i
E H produced by antenna i is carried out with all
other antennas removed. The far fields of antenna i are
( ) ( )
( ) ( ), ( ) ( )
4 4
.
i i
i i i
jkr jkr i i
i i
i i i r i i r i r
i i
jk I e jkI e
r r

= = E r L u H r u L u
(11)
It follows from (5) and (11) that [16]
,
, ,
,
( ) ( ).
8 Re Re
i j
i j i j
jkr
ij i r j r
i j si sj
jk e
h
r Z Z

L u L u (12)
Here
, i j
r is the distance between the antenna i and antenna j ;
i
L is the vector effective length for antenna i and
, i j
r
u is the
unit vector directed from antenna i to antenna j .Unless the
separations between the antenna elements are large enough, a
MIMO system fails in free space. In fact the multi-path fading
due to the scatterers plays an important role in a MIMO
system. The presence of significant scatterers in the
propagation medium guarantees that the waves from different
paths will add differently at each receiving antenna element so
that the
r
n receiving signals are independent, and can be used
to unscramble the
t
n transmitted signals. If the parameters
1

and
2
defined by
[ ]
[ ]
1
2
( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ,
( ) ( )
j
j


= +
=
r r r r
r r

are small numbers, a perturbation method may be introduced
to predict
ij
h . In this case, the fields
i
E and
i
H may be
expanded in terms of
1
and
2
as follows
1 1 2 2
1 1 2 2
,
.
i i i i
i i i i


= + + +
= + + +
E E E E
H H H H

As a first order approximation, (6) and (7) can then be
approximated by
76
{
[ ] }
( ) ( )
1
( )
2
( )
p
ij ij i j i j
i j V
i j
h h j
a a
j dV



+
}
H H
E E
(13)
( )
( ) ( )
1
.
2
p
ij ij s s jt it i j
i j S
h h Z Z dS
a a

}
H H (14)
We now assume that the
r
n receiving antenna system is in the
far-field region of the
t
n transmitting antenna system.
Furthermore we assume that the scatterers are in the far-field
regions of both the transmitting antenna system and the
receiving antenna system and there are no scatterers in
scenario 1. For a matched system, we may substitute (11) and
(12) into the above equations to obtain
{
[ ] }
,
2
( )
2
, ( ) ( )
( )
, ,
2
8 Re Re 32 Re Re
( )( ) ( )
( ) ,
n i j
t
t
t
t t t
j n i
t
j n i t
t
t p
t
jkr
n i j
n i j
n i j s n i sj s n i sj
jk r r
r j r n i
j p n i p V
n i j
jk e
k
h
r Z Z Z Z
e
j
r r
j dV

+
+
+

+
+
+ + +
+
+
+
+

+
}
L L
u L u L
L L
(15)
( )
{
}
,
2
( )
2
, ( ) ( )
( )
, ,
8 Re Re 32 Re Re
[ ( )]
[ ( )] .
n i j
t
t
t
t t t
j n i
t
j j
t p
n i t n i t
t t
jkr
n i j
n i j
n i j s n i sj s n i sj
jk r r
s s r j n r j n
j p n i p S
r n i n r n i n
jk e
k
h
r Z Z Z Z
e
Z Z
r r
dS

+
+
+ +

+
+
+ + +
+
+
+ +

}
L L
u L u u L u
u L u u L u
(16)
where
( )
t
n i j
h
+
is given by (12) and 1, 2, , ;
r
i n = 1, 2,
t
j n = .
In the above, we have used the abbreviated notations
,
( ),
j p
j j r
= L L u
,
( )
t t n i p
t
n i n i r
+
+ +
= L L u . If we assume = in
(15), then
2
( )
2
, ( ) ( )
2 2 2 2
, ,
8 Re Re 32 Re Re
( ) ( )
.
t
t
t t t
t
t p
n i j
n i j
n i j s n i sj s n i sj
n i j
j p n i p V
k
k
h
r Z Z Z Z
dV
r r

+
+
+ + +
+
+
+
+

}
L L
L L

Similarly, from (16) we obtain
2
( )
2
, ( ) ( )
, ,
8 Re Re 32 Re Re
.
t
t
t t t
t
t p
n i j
n i j
n i j s n i sj s n i sj
s s
j n i
j p n i p S
k
k
h
r Z Z Z Z
Z Z
dS
r r

+
+
+ + +
+
+
+

}
L L
L L

For simplicity, all antennas are assumed to be conjugately
matched with Re
rad
si i
Z R = . Making use of the relation
2
/ 4
rad
i i i
G k R = L , where
i
G is the directivity of antenna
i ( 1, 2, ,
t r
i n n = + ), the above relations can be written as
2 2 2
( )
,
( )
,
( ) ( ) 1
,
2 8
1
.
2 8
t
t t
t t p
t
t t
t t p
n i j
n i j n i j
n i j j n i V
n i j
s s
n i j n i j
n i j j n i S
G G
h G G dV
kr r r
G G
Z Z
h G G dS
kr r r

+
+ +
+ +
+
+ +
+ +
+
+

+
}
}

Let
max
i
G denote the maximum directivity of the antenna
i ( 1, 2, ,
t r
i n n = + ). Thus, in a scattering environment, the
maximum value of
( )
t
n i j
h
+
is given by
max max 2 2 2
( )
,
max max
( )
,
1 1
max ( ) ( ) ,
2 8
1 1
max .
2 8
t t
t t p
t t
t t p
n i j n i j
n i j j n i V
s s
n i j n i j
n i j j n i S
h G G dV
kr r r
Z Z
h G G dS
kr r r

+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
(
( = + +
(

(

( = +
(

}
}

If there exist m scatterers and each scatterer occupies a region
p
V ( 1, 2, , p m = ), the above equations should change to
max max 2 2 2
( )
1 , , ,
max max
( )
1 , , ,
1 1
max ( ) ( ) ,
2 8
1 1
max .
2 8
t t
t t p
t t
t t p
m
n i j n i j
p n i j j p n i p V
m
s s
n i j n i j
p n i j j p n i p S
h G G dV
kr r r
Z Z
h G G dS
kr r r

+ +
= + +
+ +
= + +
(
( = + +
(

(

( = +
(

}

}
(17)
IV. MAXIMUM POSSIBLE INFORMATION CAPACITY
From (17) and (10) , one can easily see that the capacity
of a MIMO system increases as the number of scatterers
increases, which simply indicates that fading due to multi-path
helps increase the system capacity for a MIMO system.
Equations (10) and (17) show how the capacity of a MIMO
system depends on the signal-to-noise ratio, antenna gains, the
distance between the transmitting and receiving antennas, and
the medium parameters of the scatterers. About one decade
ago, Simon etal proposed a question as to how many
independent antennas can be squeezed into a given small
volume to satisfy a given capacity requirement [17]. To
answer this question, we first note that the maximum possible
products of gain and bandwidth of an arbitrary antenna are
related to its maximum dimension 2a by [15]-[16]
1
2
1
1
2(2 1)
max ,
( ) ( )
(0)
2(2 1)
max .
( ) ( ) ( 1)
f
dir
n
n n
n
f
omn
n
n n
n
GB
Q ka Q ka
P
n
GB
Q ka Q ka n n

=
+
=
+
+
=
+ +

(18)
The first expression applies for the directional antennas, and
the second one for the omni-directional antennas. For small
antennas, (18) reduce to
3 3
2 2
6( ) 3( )
max , max .
2( ) 1 2( ) 1
f f
dir omn
ka ka
GB GB
ka ka

+ +
(19)
The fractional bandwidth of an arbitrary antenna of dimension
2a has an upper limit too
3
2
2( )
max .
2( ) 1
f f
ka
B B
ka
=
+
(20)
77
Eqs. (18) indicate that one can sacrifice the bandwidth to
enhance the gain and one can also sacrifice the gain to improve
the bandwidth. But the bandwidth improvement is limited as
the bandwidth itself is bounded by the right-hand side of (20).
Once the bandwidth of an antenna is specified, either its
maximum possible gain for a specified antenna dimension or
the minimum antenna dimension for a specified antenna gain
can be determined from (18). As a result, the answer to the
question of Simon etal can be obtained from (10) and (18). For
clarity, we assume that the
t
n transmitting antennas have the
same gain
max
t
G , and the
r
n receiving antennas have the same
gain
max
r
G . We further make the following approximations:
, , , , , ,
, ,
t t
n i j t r j p t p n i p r p
r r r r r r
+ +

Here
, t r
r represents the distance between the geometrical
centers of the transmitting antenna array and the receiving
antenna array;
, t p
r denotes the distance between the
geometrical center and the transmitting antenna array and an
arbitrary point inside the pth scatterer; and
, r p
r is the distance
between the geometrical center of the receiving array and an
arbitrary point inside the pth scatterer. Under these
assumptions, (10) reduces to
max max 2
2 , 2
max log 1
t r t r t r
t
P
C n n G G
n

| |
= +
|
\ .
(21)
where
2 2 2
,
1
, , ,
,
1
, , ,
1 1
( ) ( )
2 8
1 1
2 8
t p
p
m
t r
p
t r j p n i p V
m
s s
t r
p
t r t p r p S
dV
kr r r
Z Z
dS
kr r r

=
+
=
(
( = + +
(

| |

| = +
|
\ .

}

If the information capacity of the MIMO system is required to
be
0
C , it follows from (21) that
max max 2
0 2 , 2
log 1
t r t r
P
C n G G

| |
+
|
\ .
(22)
for
t r
n n n = = . This implies that the number of antennas
required to achieve
0
C must satisfy
0
max max 2
2 , 2
log 1
t r t r
C
n
P
G G

| |
+
|
\ .

The above relation indicates that the use of high gain antenna
can reduce the number of antennas required to achieve the
specified information capacity
0
C . Also from (22), one may
obtain
0
/
max max
2 2
,
2 1
( / )
C n
t r
t r
G G
P

(23)
This inequality together with (18) or (19) can be used to
determine the minimum possible antenna size required to
achieve
0
C . For example, let us assume that all antennas are
omni-directional and small, and the antenna sizes for
transmitting and receiving are denoted by 2a and 2b directly.
It follows from the second equation of (19) and (23) that
0
1/ 3
/ 2
2 2 2
,
4 2 1
9 ( / )
C n
t r
t r
B B ab
P

(
(

(24)
where is the wavelength, and
t
B and
r
B are the specified
bandwidth of antennas for the transmitting and receiving sides
of the MIMO system respectively. Equation (24) determines
the minimum antenna size required to achieve the capacity
0
C .
This answers the question of Simon etal.
REFERENCES
[1] C. E. Shannon, Communication in the presence of noise, Proc. IRE,
Vol. 37, 10-21, Jan. 1949
[2] C. E. Shannon, A mathematical theory of communication, Bell Syst.
Tech. J., Vol. 27, 379-423, July 1948; Vol. 27, 623-656, Oct. 1948
[3] G. J. Foschini, M. J. Gans, On limits of wireless communications in a
fading environment when using multiple antennas, Wireless Personal
Communications, Vol. 40, No.6, 311-335, 1998
[4] I. E. Telatar, Capacity of multi-antenna Gaussian channels, Europ.
Trans. Telecomm., Vol. 10, 585-595, Nov. 1999
[5] A. R. Paulraj, R. Nabar and D. Gore, Introduction to Space-Time
Wireless Communications, Cambridge University Press, 2003
[6] D. Tse and P. Viswanath, Fundamentals of Wireless Communications,
Cambridge University Press, 2005
[7] W. Geyi, Multi-antenna information theory, Progress in
Electromagnetics Research, PIER 75, 11-50, 2007
[8] C. Waldschmidt, S. Schulteis, and W. Wiesbeck, Complete RF system
model for analysis of compact MIMO array, IEEE Trans. Vech. Tech.,
Vol. 53, No. 3, 579-586, May 2004
[9] W. Wiesbeck and E. Heidrich, Wide-band Multiport antenna
characterization by polarmetric RCS measurements, IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propag., vol. 46, no. 3, March 1998, pp. 341-350.
[10] B. K. Lau, S.M.S. Ow, G. Kristensson, and A.F. Molisch, Capacity
analysis for compact MIMO systems, IEEE 61
st
Vech. Tech.
conference, 165-170, 2005.
[11] R. Janaswany, Effect of element mutual coupling on the capacity of
fixed linear arrays, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., Vol. 1,
157-160, 2002
[12] M. Gustafsson and S. Nordebo, On the spectral efficiency of a sphere,
PIER 67, 275-296, 2007.
[13] J. W. Wallace and M. A. Jensen, Mutual coupling in MIMO wireless
systems: A rigorous network theory analysis, IEEE Trans. Wireless
Comm., Vol. 3, No. 4, 1317-1325, July 2004.
[14] K. Yu and B. Ottersten, Models for MIMO propagation channels: a
review, Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput., 653-666, 2002
[15] W. Geyi, Physical Limitations of Antenna, IEEE Trans., Antennas
and Propagat. Vol.AP-51, 2116-2123,2003
[16] W. Geyi, Foundations of Applied Electrodynamics, Wiley, 2010
[17] S. H. Simon, A. L. Moustakas, M. Stoytcheve and H. Safar,
Communication in a disordered world, Physics Today, September
2001

78