Performance of Full Rate Non-Orthogonal STBC in Spatially Correlated MIMO Systems

Abstract

Spatial correlation is a crucial impairment for practical Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) wireless communication systems. It is important to consider spatial correlation between antennas in actual communication scenario at both sides, i.e. transmit and receive side. Furthermore, we have considered nonorthogonal full rate STBC in MIMO systems equipped with four transmit antennas and four receive antennas in a quasi-static Rayleigh fading channel. In this paper, Bit Error Rate (BER) performance of full rate non-orthogonal Space Time Block code (STBC) is obtained using simulations in MIMO wireless communication systems. Spatial correlation is assumed between antennas at both the transmitter and the receiver sides. For this analysis, we have considered various transmit antenna spacing values of d t = 0.1π, 0.2π, and 0.4π keeping fixed d r = 0.1π and various receive antenna spacing values of d r = 0.1π, 0.2π, and 0.4π keeping fixed d t = 0.1π. The obtained results show that the transmitting diversity is more serious than the receiving diversity in the spatially correlated antenna environment for the specified signal-to-noise ratio. This study will be useful for actual wireless communication implementation where spatial correlation antennas are present in the practical environment of the MIMO wireless communication system.