Space-time-polarization diversity in multiple-input multiple-output communication systems

In this work, we consider the use of multiple antenna signaling technologies, specifically space-time block coding (STBC) and spatial multiplexing (SM) schemes, in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems employing dual polarized antennas at both ends. The use of dual-polarized antennas theoretically double the number of virtual antennas used in the system. On the other hand, the correlation effects and the cross-polar discrimination (XPD) deteriorates the system performance. In our work, we consider these effects and present performance analysis of a 2 times 2 system with dual-polarized antennas for both STBC and SM cases. We also present simulation results for both multi-antenna signalling techniques together with hybrid approaches under various XPD and correlation scenarios. Both the theoretical analysis and the simulation results show a significant performance gain by joint utilization of space, time and polarization diversity in comparison to uni-polarized systems with the same number of antennas.