High data-rate transmission with eigenbeam-space division multiplexing (E-SDM) in a MIMO channel

When channel state information is known at a transmitter in multiple-input multiple-output systems, the optimum capacity is given by eigenmode channel division with water-pouring power control. In this eigenbeam-space division multiplexing (E-SDM), bit assignment to substreams based on the capacity is not optimum due to the fact that the number of assigned bits is expressed by a discrete quantity. In the paper, a method to assign both bit and transmit power to each substream based on the criterion minimizing total bit error rate (BER) is developed, and the BER performance is numerically analyzed in comparison to spatial division multiplexing (SDM). The simulation results assuming 5-transmit and 2-receive antennas show that the E-SDM provides about 10 dB gain compared to the conventional SDM at average BER of 10^-3.