Spatial multiuser access with MIMO smart antennas for OFDM systems

Indoor wireless communication systems have grown rapidly because of their clear advantages such as mobility, flexibility, and inexpensive network reconfiguration. In order to offer higher data rates approaching those provided by wired LANs, a combined OFDM/SDMA-based approach is an effective solution for increasing the system capacity and spectral efficiency. However, in multi-user environments, the system performance is limited by co-channel interference. Multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) smart antennas with prior knowledge of the channel at the transmitter is another promising technique for providing significant increase in system capacity and performance in wireless communication systems. We investigate the use of smart antennas at both the base and mobile stations, operating jointly, to maximize the SINR of each user before multiuser detection. By doing so, the performance of multi-user detection is significantly improved