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On space-frequency correlation of UWB MIMO channels

  • Xuemin Hong
    ,
  • Cheng-Xiang Wang
    ,
  • John Thompson
    ,
  • Ben Allen
    ,
  • Wasim Q. Malik
    ,
  • Xiaohu Ge
  • Heriot-Watt University
    ,
  • University of Edinburgh
    ,
  • University of Bedfordshire
    ,
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    ,
  • Harvard University
    ,
  • Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Abstract

Conventional multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) channel correlation models focus on describing the complex amplitude correlation of resolvable multipath components (MPCs). It has recently been shown that the time-of-arrival (ToA) correlation of resolvable MPCs, which has largely been ignored in the literature so far, is important for characterizing the space-frequency (SF) correlation of MIMO channels in the ultrawideband (UWB) regime. The proposal of ToA correlation brings forth the following open questions: What is the fundamental difference between amplitude and ToA correlations? Are they mutually replaceable? What impact do they have on system performance? Is this impact related to channel bandwidth? This paper systematically answers the above questions. We demonstrate that, compared with a conventional model that only considers amplitude correlation, a UWB MIMO channel model taking into account both amplitude and ToA correlations leads to different theoretical maximum diversity order, numerical structure of the SF channel covariance matrix, spatial correlation function, and diversity performance. We conclude that ToA correlation is a necessary complement to amplitude correlation when the channel bandwidth exceeds 500 MHz, i.e., UWB channels. This new insight serves as the motivation for more realistic modeling of UWB MIMO channels and the inspiration for designing advanced UWB MIMO systems to fully exploit the SF channel correlation properties.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 4201

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (Volume 59, Issue 9)

Publication milestones

  • Published - 16/09/2010

Publication status

Published - 16/09/2010

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/216689
  • Scopus: 78149460817

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