Multiplexing/Beamforming Switching for Coded MIMO in Spatially Correlated Channels Based on Closed-Form BER Approximations

This paper considers low-complexity coded multiple-input-multiple-output transmission in Rayleigh channels with correlation between antennas at both the transmitter and receiver. We consider statistical beamforming (SB) and spatial multiplexing (SM) with a zero-forcing receiver. We calculate the link-level capacity of both schemes with bit-interleaved coded modulation and derive accurate closed-form approximations to the bit error rate. We then show how the resulting expressions can be used in an adaptive algorithm to select the best combination of code rate, modulation format, and transmission scheme (SB or SM) in order to maximize throughput. Unlike other mode-switching schemes that require empirical lookup tables, this approach applies to any correlation scenario. Numerical studies are used to demonstrate the performance as a function of signal-to-noise ratio and correlation parameters.