Generalized space-time modelling of the MIMO channel applied to analysing and optimising transmit antenna configurations

For the purposes of macroscopic system design a space-time Rayleigh fading multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radio channel is modelled for an arbitrary transmit antenna configuration of three to six transmit antennas. A traditional ring of scatterers model is used to generate the spacetime cross correlations and thence flat fading channel distortions. A general trend is demonstrated for a specific non-coherent modulation scheme where the optimality of different transmission frame lengths can be related to the well known autocorrelation function; based on this trend two frame lengths are chosen for MIMO channel model analysis. Several beneficial arbitrary transmit antenna configurations are obtained from this analysis using some typical arbitrary configurations, and some initial optimisation using a genetic algorithm, from which further possible optimisation is proposed. KeywordsMIMO systems; Rayleigh fading channels; spacetime correlation; transmission frame length; transmit antenna configuration; Shannon capacity.