Multi-Element Transmit and Receive Antenna Arrays for Mobile and Wireless Communications

Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) radio channels arising from the deployment of multiple element antenna arrays at both ends of a wireless communication link have the potential to increase the overall system capacity or the peak data rates of a given user. Nevertheless, exploiting the benefits of a multiple antenna configuration is not always straightforward. The optimal solution requires the availability of Channel State Information (CSI) at the transmitter, which can only partially be fulfilled in practise. To test MIMO system performance a link level MIMO channel simulator has be build during the European IST projects METRA and I-METRA (Intelligent Multiple Element Transmit and Receive Antennas). Following ongoing standardisation activities in 3GPP/3GPP2 and IEEE the link level channel simulator has been customised by FUNDP-INFO inline with SCM-134 and IEEE 802.11 HTSG Channel Model Special Committee recommendations. A MATLAB version of the simulator is available free of charge from and has already been downloaded by over 120 third parties. Moreover, a system level UMTS MIMO channel simulator is currently under development, where special emphasis is put on accurate in and out off cell interference modelling. With the help of the link-level model, the initial concept of a UMTS simulator has been developed to investigate advanced MIMO schemes in the High Speed Data Packed Access (HSDPA) context, including features like fast channel quality based scheduling, Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) as well as hybrid Automatic Retransmission Request (ARQ). The work has been co-sponsored by the European Union, IST research programme and Nokia. (Lars T. Berger, Laurent Schumacher, Preben E. Mogensen, Persefoni Kyritsi; Troels E. Kolding, Klaus I. Pedersen, Jean Philippe Kermoal, Nokia)