Level crossing rates and MIMO capacity fades: impacts of spatial/temporal channel correlation

It is well known that MIMO systems offer the promise of achieving very high spectrum efficiencies (many tens of bit/s/Hz) in a mobile environment. The gains in MIMO capacity are sensitive to the presence of spatial and temporal correlation introduced by the radio environment. In this paper we examine how MIMO capacity is influenced by a number of factors e.g. a) temporal correlation b) various combinations of low/high spatial correlations at either end, c) combined spatial and temporal correlations. In all cases we compare the channel capacity that would be achievable under independent fading. We investigate the behaviour of “capacity fades”, examine how often the capacity experiences the fades, develop a method to determine level crossing rates and average fade durations and relate these to antenna numbers.