We study the optimal transmission strategy of a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system with covariance feedback. We assume that the receiver has perfect channel state information while the transmitter knows only the channel covariance matrix. We consider the common downlink transmission model where the base station is un-obstructed while the mobile station is surrounded by local scatterer. Therefore the channel matrix is modeled with Gaussian complex random entries with independent identically distributed rows and correlated columns. For this transmission scenario the capacity achieving eigenvectors of the transmit covariance matrix are known. The capacity achieving eigenvalues can not be computed easily. We analyze the optimal transmission strategy as a function of the transmit power. A MIMO system using only one eigenvalue performs beamforming. We derive a necessary and sufficient condition for when beamforming achieves capacity. The theoretical results are illustrated by numerical simulations.

In this paper a different view on Viterbi's method for the estimation of the reverse link capacity of a single cell of CDMA based mobile communications systems is given. Viterbi's approach is well-known and of great importance for the capacity estimation. However, the interpretation of Viterbi's result on the system capacity is not that clear. Thus, we introduce a new approach giving accurate reasons for Viterbi's capacity estimation. When neglecting the noise power, both methods provide nearly the same result. We conclude that Viterbi's finding relates to the average capacity, which is an important statistical parameter. However, we should note that this average capacity will be not available all the time. The improvements discussed in this paper focus on the specification of a certain reliability about the availability of the average capacity.

The average performance of a single-user MIMO system under spatially correlated fading and with different types of CSI at the transmitter and with perfect CSI at the receiver was studied in recent work. In contrast to analyzing a single performance metric, e.g. the average mutual information or the average bit error rate, we study an arbitrary representative of the class of matrix-monotone functions. Since the average mutual information as well as the average normalized MSE belong to that class, this universal class of performance functions brings together the information theoretic and signal processing performance metric. We use Lowner's representation of operator monotone functions in order to derive the optimum transmission strategies as well as to characterize the impact of correlation on the average performance. Many recent results derived for average mutual information generalize to arbitrary matrix-monotone performance functions, e.g. the optimal transmit strategy without CSI at the transmitter is equal power allocation. The average performance without CSI is a Schur-concave function with respect to transmit and receive correlation. In addition to this, we derive the optimal transmission strategy with long-term statistics knowledge at the transmitter and propose an efficient iterative algorithm. The beamforming-range is the SNR range in which only one data stream spatially multiplexed achieves the maximum average performance. This range is important since it has a simple receiver structure and well known channel coding. We entirely characterize the beamforming-range. Finally, we derive the generalized water-filling transmit strategy for perfect CSI and characterize its properties under channel correlation.

A great deal of effort has been spent to develop strategies for allocation of resources in DS-CDMA systems in order to mitigate effects of interference between users. Here, the choice of spreading sequences and appropriate power allocation play a crucial role. When developing such strategies, CDMA system designers need to ensure that each user meets its quality-of-service requirement expressed in terms of the signal-to-interference+noise ratio. We say that a set of users is admissible in a CDMA system if one can assign sequences to the users and control their power so that all users meet their quality-of-service requirements. In [1], the problem of admissibility in a synchronous CDMA channel was solved. However, since the simplistic setting of perfect symbol synchronism rarely holds in practice, there is a strong need for investigating asynchronous CDMA channels. In this paper, we consider a K-user asynchronous CDMA channel with processing gain N and identical performance requirements for all users assuming chip synchronism. We solve the problem of admissibility of the users in such a channel if N K, and identify optimal sequences. We also show that constant power allocation is optimal. Results obtained in this paper give valuable insights into the limits of asynchronous CDMA systems.

Transmit beamforming is a promising way to increase the downlink capacity of wireless networks. Since all users are coupled via their radiation patterns, the beamforming vectors must be optimized along with power control. It is necessary to balance the signal-to-interference levels according to individual QoS requirements. This problem leads back to the minimization of the infinity-norm of a certain vector and has first been studied by Gerlach and Paulraj in [1]. It has been assumed that the optimum solution can be obtained by minimizing the 1-norm instead, thereby leading to a new problem, which is generally easier to handle. The analytical and numerical results in this paper, however, indicate that this conjecture is generally not valid. We characterize the case where the 1-norm solution also solves the infinity-norm problem. In particular, it is shown that for the special case of a 2-user scenario, both optimization problems are indeed equivalent and a closed-form solution can be given. The analytical results provide new insights into the problem of coupled downlink beamforming and offer a useful approach to the design of efficient and reliable algorithms.