Wireless Cellular & LTE 4G

Broadband-15EC81

Module-2: Multiple Antenna

Transmission & Reception
 Multiple Antenna Transmission & Reception

• Spatial Diversity Overview

• Receive Diversity

• Transmit Diversity

• Interference Cancellation Suppression & Signal Enhancement

• Spatial Multiplexing

• How to choose between Diversity, Interference Suppression & Spatial

Multiplexing
 Multiple Antenna Transmission & Reception

Introduction:

• Multiple antenna techniques can be grouped into:

• Diversity – different versions of the signal are transmitted/ received and

provides resistance against fading.

• Interference suppression – uses spatial dimensions to reject interferences from

other users by array processing/physical antenna gain pattern.

• Spatial multiplexing – allows 2 or more independent data to be sent

simultaneously in the same BW, increases data rate.

• Combination of 3 techniques are also used to get benefits of each – MIMO –

multiple input multiple output.
MIMO – Multiple Input Multiple Output
 Spatial Diversity Overview

• Spatial diversity is achieved by 2 or more antennas, separated by some distance.

No additional BW or power is needed.
• When multiple antennas are used, there are two forms of gain available, which
we will refer to as Array Gain and Diversity Gain.
 Array Gain

• Array gain means a power gain of transmitted signals that is achieved by using
multiple-antennas at transmitter and/or receiver, with respect to
single-input single-output case.
• Array gain for correlated channels: Channels are completely correlated the
received SNR increases linearly with the number of receive antennas Nr.
• For Nt x Nr system, where Nt & Nr are Tx & Rx array gain., as follows:
– Each antenna i receives a signal characterized by:

Where hi=h for all the correlated antennas

– The SNR on a single antenna is: , where = noise power

– Resulting signal after adding all the received paths .

– Combined SNR for correlated channels - received SNR increases linearly with no. of Rx antenna –
no diversity gain.
 Diversity Gain

• Diversity gain - caused by multiple independent channels between Tx & Rx.

• Main goal of spatial diversity – improve communication reliability by decreasing the
sensitivity to fading.
• In additive noise – Bit Error Probability BEP :
• Where C1, C2 – modulation type constant & γ – SNR – error probability decreases
exponentially with SNR. In fading SNR & BEP are random variable.
• Without diversity average BEP decreases very slowly in a fading channel – given by

• Diversity order – Nd= Nr*Nt – uncorrelated channel paths between Tx & Rx.
• With diversity average BEP improves

• BEP with 2 Tx & Rx antennas = 1-10,000

 Relative BEP for Nt=1, Nr=1, 2, 4

• For LOS channel average BEP decreases.

• Sufficient spacing for the antenna is critical for increasing the system reliability.
 Increasing the Data Rate with Spatial Diversity

• Diversity techniques are very effective in averaging out fades in the channel and
increasing system reliability.
• Receive diversity techniques increase the average SNR due to the array gain.

• Shannon capacity formula gives maximum data rate of a single communication link
in presence of AWGN as

where C- capacity / maximum error-free data rate, B – channel BW , γ - SNR

(S/N)
• In low SNR channels, diversity techniques increases capacity linearly but overall
throughput is low as SNR is low since log(1+x) = x for small x.
• Higher data rate can be provided at higher SNR with multiantenna channels
with advanced signal processing.
 Increased Coverage or Reduced Transmit Power

• Diversity can also increase the coverage area and also reduce the transmit
power.

• E.g. – Nr Rx antenna and 1 Tx antenna, due to array gain the average SNR – Nr
γ, where γ – average SNR per branch, coverage area improvement is Nr2/α

• Required transmit power can be reduced by 10log10 Nr dB with a diversity gain of

Nt x Nr.
 Receive Diversity

• Most commonly used is receive diversity with Nr =2.

• Used in all LTE handsets and base stations

• Receive diversity places no additional requirement on the Tx, but the Rx should
be able to process the Nr received streams and combine them.

• 2 of the commonly used combining algorithms :

– Selection combining – SC

– Maximal Ratio Combining – MRC

• Receive diversity is highly effective in both flat fading and frequency

selective fading – flat fading is considered with Nr antennas is uncorrelated
 Selection Combining
• Principle of SC algorithm: It simply estimates the instantaneous strengths of each of
the Nr streams, and selects the highest one (see fig 5.2)
• Outage probability( Pout) : It is defined as the probability that the received SNR
drops below some required threshold, Pout = P[¥ < ¥ 0] = p.
• Assuming Nr uncorrelated receptions of the signal,

• For a Rayleigh fading channel:

Figure 5.2 Receive diversity:

selection combining.
 Selection Combining
Thus, selection combining decreases the outage probability to:

The average received SNR for Nr branch SC can be derived in Rayleigh fading to be:

Figure 5.3 Average bit error probability for selection combining (left) and maximal
ratio combining (right)
 Maximal Ratio combining - MRC

• MRC combines the information from all the received branches to maximize SNR.

• MRC works by weighing each branch by a complex factor

and then adding up the branches.

• Received signal on each branch can be written as x(t)hi assuming flat fading with a
complex value of on the ith branch.
 Maximal Ratio combining - MRC

The combined signal is

• SNR of y(t) is

where = transmit signal energy

• Branches with higher SNR are enhanced and branches with lower SNR are
given less weight.
 Transmit Diversity

• Transmit diversity is more useful in

downlink as BS can accommodate
more antennas than MS.
• Multiple antenna transmit schemes:

• Open-loop – systems that don’t

require the knowledge of the
channel at the TX.
• Closed-loop – systems that require
the channel knowledge at the Tx Fig: Open-loop transmit diversity – No

through a feedback channel from the feedback.

 Open-loop Transmit Diversity: 2x1 Space-Frequency
Block Coding
• Most popular open-loop transmit diversity scheme is space-time coding – a code
known to the Rx is also applied to the Tx.
• 1990 – space-time block code (STBC) also called Alamouti code / orthogonal
space-time block code.
• s1 transmitted by Tx1 and s2 transmitted by Tx2 over subcarriers f1 & f2.
 Open-loop Transmit Diversity: 2x1 Space-Frequency
Block Coding

• 2x1 Alamouti code is a rate 1 code as there is no increase/ decrease in data rates.

• h1(f1) & h2(f2) are the complex channel gains of Tx antenna 1 & 2 to the Rx
antenna
• Assuming constant channels h1(f1) = h2(f2) = h1.
 Open-loop Transmit Diversity: 2x1 Space-
Frequency Block Coding
• Received signal r(f) is

• Assuming channel is known to Rx

• Resulting SNR

• Each TX antenna halves its Tx Power as total TX power per data symbol is Єx.
• 2x1 Alamouti code gives same Diversity as 1x2with MRC
 Open-loop Transmit Diversity with more Antennas
• In this approach achieve the gains of both MRC and the SFBC simultaneously
• 2x2 SFBC:

Fig: 2x2 SFBC

• The channel description can be represented as 2x2 matrix

• Resulting signals at subcarriers f1 & f2 on antenna 1 & 2

 Open-loop Transmit Diversity with more Antennas

• Using the following combining scheme

• Giving the following decision :

• Resulting SNR:

• 2x2 Alamouti achieves full diversity gain.

 Open-loop Transmit Diversity with more Antennas

• 4x2 Stacked STBC – LTE will have 4 TX antenna. 2 data streams are sent
using double space-time transmit diversity scheme (DSTTD)
• Similar to operating two 2x1 Alamouti code systems in parallel.
• DSTTD, also called "stacked STBCs," combines transmit diversity and maximum
ratio combining techniques along with a form of spatial multiplexing as shown in
Figure 5.5.
 Open-loop Transmit Diversity with more Antennas

• Received signals at subcarrier f1 & f2 on antenna 1 & 2 are represented with equivalent
channel models:

• Equivalent matrix channel model of DSTTD

• Using linear combining scheme for decision :

• Ii is the interference from the ith Tx antenna due to transmitting 2 simultaneous data
 Open-loop Transmit Diversity with more
Antennas

• 4x2 in LTE – a combination of SFBC and frequency switched transmit diversity

FSTD is used. Rate 1 encoder.

• This combination is a rate 1 diversity scheme – 2 modulation symbols are sent over
4 OFDM symbols, using the following space-time encoder.
 Open-loop Transmit Diversity with more
Antennas

• Rows are Tx antennas and columns are subcarrier index.

• 1st & 2nd symbols s1 & s2 are sent over antenna ports 0 & 2 on the first 2 OFDM
subcarriers in the block.

• On the other 2 subcarriers 3rd & 4th symbols are sent using antenna port 1 & 3.
 Transmit Diversity vs Receive Diversity

• Tx & Rx both increases the system diversity and increases the robustness of
communication over wireless fading channel.

• Receive diversity – for maximal ratio combining with Nr antenna and 1 Tx antenna
received SNR grows linearly with no. of antennas.
 Transmit Diversity vs Receive Diversity

• Transmit diversity – received SNR does not always grow with Tx antennas.

• Combined SNR for 1 Rx antenna

• As the no. of Tx antenna grows large this expression changes to

• Transmit diversity it eliminates

the effects of fading but does not
actually increase the average
amount of useful received signal-
to-noise ratio.
• Figure 5.6 Comparison of the
SFBC with MRC for coherent
BPSK in a Rayleigh fading
 Closed-loop Transmit Diversity

• As feedback is added to the system, Tx will have knowledge of the channel.

• As the channel changes rapidly in high-mobility scenario, so closed-loop system is

more suitable in fixed / low-mobility scenario.

• Two important types of closed-loop transmit diversity are as follows

• Transmit selection diversity
• Linear diversity precoding
 Closed-loop Transmit Diversity

1.Transmit selection diversity: Only a subset 𝑁∗ < 𝑁𝑡 of the available 𝑁𝑡 antennas is used
at a given time. The selected subset typically corresponds to the best channels between the
transmitter and receiver.
• Some advantages of transmit antenna selection are
– Hardware cost and complexity are reduced,

– The diversity order is still 𝑁𝑡 × 𝑁𝑟 even though only N* of the 𝑁𝑡 antennas are used.

• Drawback of this diversity is, the gain from selecting the best antenna averaged over all the
coherence bands is likely to be small in a wide band channel.

2. Linear diversity precoding:

• Precoding is a technique which exploits transmit diversity by weighting the information
stream.
• Linear precoding is a general technique for improving the data rate or the link reliability by
 Interference Cancellation Suppression and
Signal Enhancement

• The available antenna elements at either the transmitter or receiver can be used
to suppress undesired signals and/or enhance the power of the desired signal.
• Depending on the amount of information available about the interfering
channels, following are three approaches for interference suppression and
signal enhancement
• DOA-Based Beam steering

• Linear Interference Suppression: Complete Knowledge of Interference

Channels
• Linear Interference Suppression: Statistical Knowledge of Interference
Channels
 I.DOA-Based Beam steering

• The beamsteering approaches performs to produce

beam patterns can be finely and, dynamically
adjusted to attenuate undesired signals while
amplifying desired signals.
• The various signals can be characterized in

terms of the direction of arrival (DOA) or

angle of arrival (AOA) of each received signal.

• Each DOA can be estimated using signal
processing techniques such as the MUSIC,
ESPRIT, and MLE algorithms.
• A beamformer extracts a weighting vector for

the antenna elements and uses it to transmit or

receive the desired signal of a specific user

while suppressing the undesired interference

 Linear Interference Suppression: Complete
Knowledge of Interference Channels
• Consider a single transmitter with 𝑁𝑡 antennas trying to communicate to a receiver
with 𝑁𝑟 >𝑁𝑡 antennas, in the presence of Li, interfering transmitters, thus the
interfering sources.
• For total of two transmitted streams, to a two-antenna receiver, as shown in Figure
5.9. The received signal model is therefore:
𝑦=𝑯x+n
Where H is a 2 x 2 matrix of both the desired and interfering channels.

• For example, a zero-forcing receiver G = H-1 would do the trick and produce as
long as H is well- conditioned.
 Linear Interference Suppression: Statistical
Knowledge of Interference Channels

• Consider the desired transmitter has Nt antennas for transmission and

the desired receiver Nr antennas for reception in a flat fading
channel.
• Then Li distinct co-channel interferers each equipped with N t, i
antenna elements. Then beamforming vector wt. & so the Nr
dimensional received signal vector at the receiver is given by

Where x is the desired symbol with energy.

•
 Spatial Multiplexing

• Concept: Several different data bits are transmitted via several independent (spatial)
channels.
• Spatial multiplexing refers to breaking the incoming high rate data stream into M
parallel data streams, as shown in Figure 5.11 for M = Nt and Nt ≤ Nr .

•
Figure 5.11 A spatial multiplexing MIMO system transmits multiple
sub- streams to increase the data rate.
 Spatial Multiplexing
• Principles of Operation: If the
transmitter and receiver both have
multiple antennas, then we can set up
multiple parallel data streams between
them, so as to increase the data rate. In a
system with Nt transmit and Nr receive
antennas, often known as an Nt × Nr
spatial multiplexing system, the peak
data rate is proportional to min (Nt , Nr )
• The symbols travel to the receive antennas

by way of four separate radio paths, so the

received signals can be written as follows Figure 5.12 Basic principles of a 2x2
y1 = H11 x1 + H12 x2 + n1 spatial multiplexing system
y2 = H21 x1 + H22 x2 + n2
 Spatial Multiplexing
• The standard mathematical model for spatial multiplexing is

• y=Hx+n

Where Y is the size of the received vector Nr × 1. The channel matrix H is Nt × Nr

the transmit vector x is Nt × 1, and the noise n is Nr × 1.
• The channel matrix in particular is of the form:

• The capacity, or maximum data rate, grows as min (Nt , Nr ) log(1 +SNR) when the
SNR is large. When the SNR is high, spatial multiplexing is optimal.
• When the SNR is low, the capacity is much smaller than at high SNR, it still grows
approximately linearly with min(Nt,Nr) since capacity is linear with SNR in the
low-SNR regime.
• The average SNR of all Nt streams can be maintained without increasing the total transmit
power relative to a SISO system.
 Spatial Multiplexing

Open loop MIMO: Spatial multiplexing without channel feedback.

• The principal open-loop techniques; will always assume that the channel is known
at the receiver through pilot symbols or other channel estimation techniques.
• The open-loop techniques for spatial multiplexing attempt to suppress the
interference that results from all Nt streams being received by each of the Nr .
antennas.

Closed loop MIMO: Spatial multiplexing with channel feedback.

• The potential gain from transmitter channel knowledge is quite significant in spatial
multiplexing systems.
• For example using singular value decomposition (SVD) that shows the potential
gain of closed- loop spatial multiplexing methods.
 How to Choose Between Diversity, Interference
Suppression, and Spatial Multiplexing
• In MIMO, diversity techniques provides diversity gain and aimed at improving the reliability.
• On the other hand, spatial multiplexing creates more parallel streams but does not necessarily
increase the per-stream SINR.

• Conclusion is that all the spatial degrees of freedom should be used for multiplexing and
none for spatial diversity. In short, there is no tradeoff! This is well-captured in Figure 5.17.
We see that for all but the highest SNR values, transmit diversity indeed outperforms spatial
multiplexing.

Figure 5.17 The Diversity-Multiplexing Tradeoff, for a narrowband system with no other
forms of diversity (left) and for a wideband system with ARQ (right).
Thank You