MIMO I: Spatial Diversity

COS 463: Wireless Networks

Lecture 16
Kyle Jamieson
[Parts adapted from D. Halperin et al., T. Rappaport]
 What is MIMO, and why?
• Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MIMO) communications

– Send/receive > 1 signal on different transmit and receive antennas

• We’ve already seen frequency, time, spatial multiplexing in 463:

– MIMO is a more powerful way to multiplex wireless medium in space

– Transforms multipath propagation from impediment to advantage

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 Many Uses of MIMO
• At least three different ways to leverage space:

1. Spatial diversity: Send or receive redundant streams of information in

parallel along multiple spatial paths
– Increase reliability and range (unlikely all paths are degraded
simultaneously)

2. Spatial multiplexing: Send independent streams of information in parallel

along multiple spatial paths
– Increases rate, if we can avoid interference

3. Interference alignment: “Align” two streams of interference at receiver,

resulting in impact of just one interference stream
 MIMO-OFDM

subcarriers
Symbols

• Multipath fading: different effects on different frequencies

– OFDM: Orthogonal Frequency Domain Multiplexing
– Different subcarriers are independent of each other

• Channel model for OFDM: y = h∙x + w

– A single complex number h captures the effect of the channel on data
in a particular subcarrier

• For MIMO: Think about each subcarrier, independent of other subcarriers

 Plan
1. Today: Diversity in Space
– Receive Diversity
– Transmit Diversity

2. Next time: Multiplexing in Space

3. Next time: Interference Alignment

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 Path Diversity: Motivation
1. Multi-Antenna Access Points (APs), especially 802.11n,ac:

2. Multiple APs cooperating with each other:

Wired backhaul
3. Distributed Antenna systems, separating antenna from AP:

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 Review: Fast Fading
• Typical outdoor multipath propagation environment, channel h

• On one link each subcarrier’s power level experiences Rayleigh fading:

𝟐
|𝒉|

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 Uncorrelated Rayleigh Fading
• Suppose two antennas, separated by distance d12

• Channels from each to a distant third antenna (h13, h23) can be

uncorrelated
– Fading happens at different times with no bias for a simultaneous fade
𝟐 𝟐
|𝒉𝟏| ,|𝒉𝟐|

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 When is Fading Uncorrelated, and Why?

≫𝜆 𝑑12

• Channels from each antenna (h13, h23) to a third antenna

– Channels are uncorrelated when
– Channels correlated, fade together when

• This correlation distance depends on the radio environment

around the pair of antennas
– Increases, e.g., atop cellular phone tower
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 Plan
1. Today: Diversity in Space
– Receive Diversity
• Selection Diversity
• Maximal Ratio Combining
– Transmit Diversity

2. Next time: Multiplexing in Space

3. Next time: Interference Alignment

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 Channel Model for Receive Diversity
• One transmit antenna sends a symbol to two receive antennas
– Receive diversity, or Single-Input, Multi-Output (SIMO)

h1 Receive antenna 1
x
h2
Receive antenna 2

• Each receive antenna gets own copy of transmitted signal via:

– A different path
– A (likely) different channel
 Selection Diversity

h1
Rx 1
x Select stronger
h2 Radio
Rx 2

• Two receive antennas share one receiving radio via a switch

• Receiver selects antenna with stronger signal to connect to the radio

– Helps reliability (both unlikely bad)
– Wastes received signal from other antenna(s)
 Selection Diversity:
Performance Improvement in Uncorrelated Rayleigh Fading
• In general, might have M receive Probability (%) that Selected
Antenna’s SNR Exceeds Threshold γ
antennas (average SNR Γ)
– : SNR of the i th receive antenna

• Probability selected SNR is less than

some threshold γ (outage):

• One more “9” of reliability per

additional selection branch

Higher probability
(better) ↓

 lower threshold SNR 13

 Leveraging All Receive Antennas

h1 Rx 1

x
h2
Rx 2

• Want to just add the two received signals together

– But if we did the signals would often cancel out

• Solution: Receive M radios, align signal phases, then add

– Requires M receive radios, in general
 How to Choose Weights?

h1 Rx 1

r
ne
bi
om
x
y

C
h2
Rx 2

• Suppose phase of incoming signal on the i th branch is

• To align { yi } in phase, let the combiner output

– How to choose amplitudes ai?

• Idea: Put more weight into branches with high SNR: Let
– This is called Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC)
 MRC: Performance Improvement
Probability that MRC’s SNR is Under Threshold γ

Lower probability
(better) ↓

10 log 10 ( 𝛤 /𝛾 ) Lower threshold SNR 

• Two “9”s of reliability improvement between one (i.e., no MRC) and two
MRC branches
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 Selection Diversity, in Frequency

• Antennas A and C experience different fades on different subcarriers

• Selection Combining (“SEL”) improves but certain subcarriers still experience fading

• MRC increases power and flattens nulls, leading to fewer bit errors
 MRC’s Capacity Increase
• MRC with M branches increases SNR
– Increased Shannon capacity

• Sub-linear (logarithmic) capacity increase in M:

– bits/second/Hz
 Plan
1. Today: Diversity in Space
– Receive Diversity
– Transmit Diversity
• Transmit beamforming

• Introduction to Space-Time Coding: Alamouti’s Scheme

2. Next time: Multiplexing in Space

3. Next time: Interference Alignment

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 Transmit Diversity: Motivation
• More space, power, processing capability available at the transmitter?
– Yes, likely! e.g. Cell tower, Wi-Fi AP sending downlink traffic to mobile

• But, a possible requirement: Transmitter may need to know radio

channel before transmission commences
– cf. receive diversity: receiver knows channel from preamble

• So, a tension: Want to separate transmit antennas for path diversity

– Need to move timely radio channel measurements between locations
• Introduces overhead and design complexity

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 Transmit Beamforming: Motivation

“receiver”

• Suppose transmitter knows the channel to receivers

• Transmitters align their signals so that constructive interference occurs at

the single receive antenna
– Align before transmission, not after reception (receive beamforming)

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 Transmit Beamforming
• Leverage channel reciprocity, receive beamforming “in reverse”

• Send one data symbol x from two antennas

𝑎1 𝑒− 𝑗 𝜃 1
h1 =
𝑎1 𝑒 𝑗𝜃
1
Tx 1

𝑗𝜃2 Receive
𝑎1 𝑒
Tx 2 h 2¿

𝑎 2 𝑒− 𝑗 𝜃 2

• At each transmit antenna, multiply (pre-code) x by the complex conjugate

of the respective channel to the receive antenna
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 Plan
1. Today: Diversity in Space
– Receive Diversity
– Transmit Diversity
• Transmit beamforming

• Introduction to Space-Time Coding: Alamouti’s Scheme

2. Next time: Multiplexing in Space

3. Next time: Interference Alignment

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 Alamouti Scheme: Motivation
• Suppose transmitters don’t know channel to receiver: what to do?

1. Naïve (“blind”) beamforming (just send same signals)

– Signals would often cancel out

2. Repetition in time
– Each antenna takes turns transmitting same symbol
• Receiver combines coherently

– Uses M symbol times

• Increases diversity (“SNR” term in Shannon capacity)
• Cuts Shannon rate by 1/M factor

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 Alamouti Scheme
• Scope: A two-antenna transmit diversity system (M = 2)

• Sends two symbols, s1 and s2, in two symbol time periods:

Symbol Time Period 1 2

Antenna 1: Send Send
Antenna 2: Send Send

• Then, by superposition the receiver hears:

Symbol Time Period 1 2

Receiver hears:

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 Alamouti Receiver Processing
Symbol Time Period 1 2

Receiver hears:

• Rewrite (receiver has channel information):

• So receiver can solve for transmitted symbols

• But, what’s happening in terms of the physical wireless channel?

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 Intuition for Alamouti Receiver Processing
• Start with the inverted channel matrix:

• Consider the computation for s1:

– Rotate by
– Rotate by
– Sum the result

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 Alamouti: Impact of Phase Rotations
• Consider the computation for s1:
– Rotate by
– Rotate by
– Sum the result

Symbol Time Period 1 2

Receiver hears:
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
Phase after rotation:

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 Alamouti: Receiver-Side Picture
Symbol Time Period 1 2

Receiver hears:
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
Phase after rotation:

• Receiver then sums all terms above:

Received signal: Q

∡ 𝜃2 − 𝜃 1
s2
s2 s1 s1 I

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 Alamouti: Interpretation

• Two new signal dimensions:

1. Multiply two received symbols by the top column of H

– Name this dimension
– s1 arrives along this dimension (only!)

2. Multiply two received symbols by the lower column of H

– Name this dimension
– s2 arrives along this dimension (only!)
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 Alamouti: Performance
• Two dimensions: , Received Q
signal:

s1 s1 I

• Send half power on each antenna

– For both symbols,

• Rate gain from enhanced SNR, maintains one symbol/symbol time

– But not two symbols/symbol time: no true spatial multiplexing,
yet

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 Multi-Antenna Diversity: Summary
• Leverage path diversity
– Decrease probability of “falling into” to deep Rayleigh fade on a
single link

• Defined new “dimensions” of independent communication channels

based on space
– Segue to spatial multiplexing next time

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 Thursday Topic:
MIMO II: Spatial Multiplexing

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