Exploiting multipath diversity in multiple antenna OFDM systems with spatially correlated channels

Multiple antennas are useful in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems for providing transmit and receive diversity to overcome fading. Typically, these designs require considerable separation between the antennas. Spatial correlation is introduced when antennas are not well separated, and it often leads to performance degradation in a flat fading environment. However, in frequency selective fading channels with rich multipath diversity, OFDM receivers can overcome this performance degradation due to antenna correlation. This is due to transformation of a highly spatially correlated channel impulse response to a less spatially correlated channel frequency response inherently by an OFDM system in the presence of rich multipath diversity. We illustrate this for a simple receive diversity OFDM system and hence introduce the concept of space sampling at the receiver where antennas are placed relatively close to each other. The minimum separation required between the antennas under such circumstances is derived analytically, and it is shown that even with a separation of only 0.44λ, the required spatial correlation in the channel frequency response becomes sufficiently low. Simulated performance results with such spacing for various multiple antenna OFDM systems corroborate the analytical results. © 2005 IEEE.