Outage Capacity of Spatially Correlated Multipath Fading Channels

In this paper, we study the effect of the scattering environment on the capacity of a single carrier linear modulation used in a multipath, multiple antenna channel. The work incorporates detailed 3D geometric channel models to assess the effect of spatial correlation. The analysis techniques, based on the pioneering work of Hirt and Massey (1988), provide a method to evaluate outage capacity. Channels that are derivatives of the ETSI standard hilly terrain and typical urban are considered in detail. The results quantify the loss of capacity produced by higher spatial correlation. When comparing signals of different bandwidth, wideband systems produce more diversity due to better temporal resolution. Surprisingly, narrowband systems gain some diversity back by being less susceptible to loss of diversity from spatial correlation