In this letter, we analyze the average symbol error rate (SER) performance for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication links with transmit beamforming and maximum ratio combining (MRC), known as MIMO-MRC, in the presence of multiple interferers in Rayleigh fading channels. An upper bound and an approximation of the average SER for M-ary signaling and an exact average SER for some modulation formats are evaluated. Moreover, an exact closed-form expression of the average SER in an interference-limited environment is derived. The analytical results are confirmed by numerical simulations.

In this paper, we propose a novel scheme of cooperative relaying network based on data exchange between relays before forwarding their received data to destination. This inter-relay data exchange step is done during an additional middle-slot in order to enhance the transmit signals from relays to the destination under low transmit power condition. To reduce the propagation errors between relays as well as the required transmit power during this data exchange, only the relay possessing the highest SNR is engaged into exchanging data by forwarding its received signal to the other relays. As for the remaining non-selected relays, i.e. with low SNR, the transmitted signal is estimated by using both signals received separately at different time slots (i.e., 1st and 2nd slot) from source and the 'best' selected relay, respectively, emulating virtual antenna array where appropriate weights for the antenna array are developed. In addition, we investigate distributed transmit beamforming and maximum ratio combining at the relays and the destination, respectively, to combine coherently the received signals. At the relay optimal location and for low SNR condition, the proposed method has significant better outage behavior and average throughput than conventional methods using one or two time slots for transmission.

Transmit beamforming can exploit the spatial diversity afforded by multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with low complexity. To apply this technique in more practical systems with the constraint of limited feedback, codebook based beamforming and vector quantization technique have been considered in various papers. On the other hand, multi-user scheduling is able to achieve another form of diversity arising from the independence of fading for different users, however, has not been fully taken into account in existing codebook based beamforming schemes. In this letter, a multi-codebook based beamforming and scheduling scheme is proposed, which exploits both spatial diversity and multi-user diversity by switching the codebook for different resource blocks. Meanwhile, the multi-codebook design issue is addressed, the corresponding theoretical analysis is provided, and the performance gain of proposed scheme is simulated. Furthermore, the impacts of related parameters on the performance gain are also investigated.

Focusing on time correlation of real communication channels, a channel quantization algorithm based on finite state vector quantization (FSVQ) is proposed. Firstly channels are partitioned into finite states, then codebooks corresponding to each state are constructed, which are used to quantize channels transferred from corresponding states. Further, the state transition function is designed to ensure the synchronization between transmitter and receiver. The proposed algorithm can achieve improved performance with the same feedback load compared with classical memoryless channel quantizer without consideration of the influence of time correlation. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

In time-varying fading environments, the performance of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems applying an eigenbeam-space division multiplexing (E-SDM) technique may be degraded due to a channel change during the time interval between the transmit weight matrix determination and the actual data transmission. To compensate for the channel change, we have proposed some channel prediction methods. Simulation results based on computer-generated channel data showed that better performance can be obtained when using the prediction methods in Rayleigh fading environments assuming the Jakes model with rich scatterers. However, actual MIMO systems may be used in line-of-sight (LOS) environments, and even in a non-LOS case, scatterers may not be uniformly distributed around a receiver and/or a transmitter. In addition, mutual coupling between antennas at both the transmitter and the receiver cannot be ignored as it affects the system performance in actual implementation. We conducted MIMO channel measurement campaigns at a 5.2 GHz frequency band to evaluate the channel prediction techniques. In this paper, we present the experiment and simulation results using the measured channel data. The results show that robust bit-error rate performance is obtained when using the channel prediction methods and that the methods can be used in both Rayleigh and Rician fading environments, and do not need to know the maximum Doppler frequency.

In a frequency-selective multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel, the optimum transmission is achieved by beamforming with eigenvectors obtained at each discrete frequency point, i.e., an extension of eigenbeam-space division multiplexing (E-SDM). However, the calculation load of eigenvalue decomposition at the transmitter increases in proportion to the number of frequency points. In addition, frequency-independent eigenvectors increase the delay spread of the effective channel observed at the receiver. In this paper, we propose a pseudo eigenvector scheme for the purpose of mitigating the calculation load and maintaining frequency continuity (or decreasing the delay spread). First, we demonstrate that pseudo eigenvectors reduce the delay spread of the effective channels with low computational complexity. Next, the practical performance of the pseudo E-SDM (PE-SDM) transmission is evaluated. The simulation results show that PE-SDM provides almost the same or better performance compared with E-SDM when the receiver employs a time-windowing-based channel estimation available in the low delay spread cases.

In this letter, we study the impact of feedback error on transmit beamforming systems with finite rate feedback. The feedback channel is modeled as a uniform symmetric channel. The outage probability, bit error rate (BER), diversity gain, and array gain formulas are given. Both analytical and simulation results show that feedback error with small probability will make the system behave badly at high signal-to-noise ratios (SNR).