Spatial precoder design for space-time coded MIMO systems: Based on fixed parameters of MIMO channels

In realistic channel environments the performance of space-time coded multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) systems is significantly reduced due to non-ideal antenna placement and non-isotropic scattering. In this paper, by exploiting the spatial dimension of a MIMO channel we introduce the novel idea of linear spatial precoding (or power-loading) based on fixed and known parameters of MIMO channels to ameliorate the effects of non-ideal antenna placement on the performance of coherent (channel is known at the receiver) and non-coherent (channel is un-known at the receiver) space-time codes. Antenna spacing and antenna placement (geometry) are considered as fixed parameters of MIMO channels, which are readily known at the transmitter. With this design, the precoder is fixed for fixed antenna placement and the transmitter does not require any feedback of channel state information (partial or full) from the receiver. We also derive precoding schemes to exploit non-isotropic scattering distribution parameters of the scattering channel to improve the performance of space-time codes applied on MIMO systems. However, these schemes require the receiver to estimate the non-isotropic parameters and feed them back to the transmitter. Closed form solutions for precoding schemes are presented for systems with up to three receive antennas. A generalized method is proposed for more than three receive antennas.