Design of adaptive MIMO system using linear
dispersion code
Mabruk Gheryani, Zhiyuan Wu, and Yousef R. Shayan
Concordia University, Department of Electrical Engineering
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
email: (m gherya, zy wu, yshayan)@ece.concordia.ca
Abstract— In this paper, we develop a new design for adap-
tation of linear dispersion code. A new adaptive parameter
called space-time symbol rate is applied in our design. We have
studied the statistics of signal-to-interference-noise of a linear
MMSE receiver over a Rayleigh fading channel. The average
BER for a given constellation using the MMSE receiver is
calculated numerically. With the statistics as a guideline, two
adaptive techniques using constellation and space-time symbol
rate are studied, respectively. If constellation and space-time
symbol rate are considered jointly, more selection modes can
be available. Theoretical analysis demonstrates that the average
transmission rate of the joint adaptation can be improved in this
case. Simulation results are provided to show the benefits of our
new design.
I. I NTRODUCTION
The demand for bandwidth efficiency in wireless communi-
cations has experienced an unprecedented growth. One signif-
icant advancement to improve radio spectrum efficiency is the
use of multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technology [1]
[2]. Space-time (ST) codes are the most promising technique
for MIMO systems [3] [4]. Due to battery life and device
size, the power available for radio communications is limited.
Under this power constraint, adaptive technique can cooperate
with MIMO technology to further exploit radio spectrum [5]
[6].
In an adaptive system, a feedback channel is utilized to
provide channel state information (CSI) from the receiver
to the transmitter. According to the feedback of CSI, the
transmitter will adjust transmission parameters, such as power
allocation, modulation, coding rate, etc. This is conditioned
by the fact that the channel stays relatively constant before
the transmitter receives the CSI and then transmits next data
block accordingly. That is, the channel is “slow”. Many
of adaptive MIMO schemes have been proposed, such as
water-filling-based schemes [1] [7] and various beamforming
schemes [6] [8]. The above schemes often need near-perfect
CSI feedback for adaptation calculation and consume large
feedback bandwidth. In practice, the channel estimation will
exhibit some inaccuracy depending on the estimation method.
The receiver will need time to process the channel estimate
and the feedback is subject to some transmission delay. The
transmitter needs some time to choose a proper code, and
there are possible errors in the feedback channel. All these
factors make the CSI at the transmitter inaccurate. Addition-
ally, the feedback bandwidth is often limited. In these cases,
adaptive schemes with a set of discrete transmission modes
are often more preferable. We can call them “selection-mode”
adaptation. At the receiver, the channel is measured and then
one transmission mode with the highest transmission rate is
chosen, which meanwhile meets the BER requirement. The
optimal mode is fed back to the transmitter.
For selection-mode MIMO adaptation, the most convenient
adaptive parameter is constellation size for uncoded systems.
For example, constellation adaptation, such as M-QAM, is
applied to space-time block code (STBC) [9] and to space-
time trellis code (STTC) [10]. The disadvantage of these
schemes, is that they are not flexible for different rates, which
is the key requirement in the future wireless communications.
Additionally, the gap between the available transmission rates
are often very large due to the use of discrete constellations
[8].
In this paper, we propose to apply linear dispersion code
(LDC) [11] [12] for adaptation. This is because it subsumes
many existing block codes as its special cases which allows
suboptimal linear receivers with greatly reduced complexity,
and provides flexible rate-versus-performance tradeoff [11]
[13]. With the application of LDC, a linear MMSE detector
is more attractive due to its simplicity and good performance
[14]. As a guideline, the statistics of SINR for LDCs with a
MMSE receiver is studied and the associated average BER is
calculated numerically. Since the LDC is applied, it makes
ST symbol rate available for adaptation. By adjusting this
new parameter together with constellation size, more available
transmission modes can be provided. Hence, the throughput
under a power constraint can be further improved while the
target bit error rate (BER) is satisfied.
II. S YSTEM M ODEL
In this study, during one ST modulation block, the channel
is assumed to be the same as estimated at the receiver.
Furthermore, the channel is assumed to be a Rayleigh flat
fading channel with Nt transmit and Nr receive antennas.
Let’s denote the complex gain from transmit antenna n to
receiver antenna m by hmn and collect them to form an
Nr × Nt channel matrix H = [hmn ], known perfectly to the
receiver. The entries in H are assumed to be independently
identically distributed (i.i.d.) symmetrical complex Gaussian
random variables with zero mean and unit variance.
 In this system, the information bits are first mapped into We consider a general system model as shown in Section II.
symbols. After that, the symbol stream is parsed into blocks of In our study, Nr ≥ Nt is assumed. For simplicity, we choose
length L. The symbol vector associated with one modulation T equal to Nt and L equal to Nt T .
block is denoted by x = [x1 , x2 , . . . , xL ]T with xi ∈ Ω ≡ Equation (4) can also be written as
{Ωm |m = 0, 1, . . . , 2Q − 1, Q ≥ 1}, i.e., a complex constella- r r
P P X
tion of size 2Q , such as 2Q -QAM). The average symbol energy y= h̃i xi + h̃j xj + z (5)
2Q
P −1 Nt Nt
j6=i
is assumed to be 1, i.e., 21Q |Ωm |2 = 1. Each block of
m=0
In the sequel, the i-th column of H, e denoted as h̃i , will be
symbols will be mapped by the ST modulator to a dispersion
matrix of size Nt ×T and then transmitted over the Nt transmit referred to as the signature signal of symbol xi .
antennas over T channel uses. The following model will be Without loss of generality, we consider the estimation of one
considered in this study, i.e., symbol, say xi . Collect the rest of the symbols into a column
vector xI and denote H e I = [h̃1 , .., h̃i−1 , h̃i+1 , ..., h̃L ] as the
L
X matrix obtained by removing the i-th column from H. e
X= Mi xi (1) A linear MMSE receiver is applied and the corresponding
i=1 output is given by
where Mi is defined by its L Nt × T dispersion matrices
x̂i = wiH y = xi + ẑi . (6)
Mi = [mi1 , mi2 , . . . , miT ]. The so-obtained results can be
extended to the model in [11]. With a constellation of size 2Q , where ẑi is the noise term of zero mean. The corresponding
the data rate of the space-time modulator in bits per channel wi can be found as
use is ³ ´−1
Rm = Q · L/T (2) h̃i h̃H
i + RI h̃i
wi = q ³ ´−1 (7)
P H H +R
Hence, one can adjust ST symbol rate L/T and constellation Nt ih̃ h̃ i h̃ i I h̃i
size Q according to the feedback from the receiver. 2
At the receiver, the received signals associated with one where RI = H e IH
e H + Nt σz I. Note that the scaling factor
I P
pP H 1
modulation block can be written as −1 in the coefficient vector of the MMSE
Nt h̃i (h̃i h̃i +RI )
H h̃i
r r L receiver wi is added to ensure an unbiased detection as
P P X
Y= HX + Z = H Mi xi + Z (3) indicated by (6). The variance of the noise term ẑi can be
Nt Nt i=1
found from (6) and (7) as
where Y is a complex matrix of size N r × T whose (m, n)- σ̂i2 = wiH RI wi (8)
th entry is the received signal at receive antenna m and time
instant n, Z is the additive white Gaussian noise matrix with With (7) and (8), the SINR of MMSE associated with xi is
µ ¶
i.i.d. symmetrical complex Gaussian elements of zero mean 1 P −1
and variance σz2 , and P is the average energy per channel γi = = h̃H
i RI h̃i (9)
ˆ2
σi N t
use at each receive antenna. It is often desirable to write the
matrix input-output relationship in (3) in an equivalent vector The average BER over MIMO fading channel for a given
notation. Let vec() be the operator that forms a column vector constellation can be found as follows.
" #
by stacking the columns of a matrix and define y = vec(Y), 1X
z = vec(Z), and mi = vec(Mi ), then (3) can be rewritten as BERav = Eγi e
BER(γi (H, γ̄)) (10)
L i
r r
P P e
y= HGx + z = Hx + z (4) where γ̄ = NPt σ2 .
Nt Nt z
In our LDC design, all the symbols has the same SINR, i.e.,
where H = IT ⊗ H with ⊗ as the Kronecker product γ1 = γ2 = · · · = γL = γ. Equation (10) can be written as
Z
operator and G = [m1 , m2 , . . . , mL ] will be referred to as
the modulation matrix. BERav = BER(γ, γ̄)PΓ (γ)dγ (11)

III. T HE S TATISTICS OF SINR WITH THE MMSE By using singular value decomposition (SVD), (9) can be
R ECEIVER written as µ ¶
P
γ= h̃H
i UΛ
−1 H
U h̃i (12)
Since the LDC is linear, an MMSE detector can be ap- Nt
plied as suboptimal receiver due to its simplicity and good
where UH is an Nt2 − 1 × Nt2 − 1 unitary matrix and the
performance [14]. The main goal of this section is to study
matrix Λ is (Nt2 − 1) × (Nt2 − 1) with nonnegative numbers
the error-rate probability and the statistics of SINR for LDCs
on the diagonal and zeros off the diagonal. Let’s define
[11]- [13] using linear MMSE receiver over a Rayleigh fading
channel. h0 = UH h̃i
 We can formulate the selection of transmission modes as
3x3
0
10
8PSK−Simulation

−1
8PSK−Numerical follows.
10
Θopt = arg max RΘn (16)
−2 {Θn ,∀n=1,2,...,N }
10

subject to
BER

−3
10

BERΘn (γo ) ≤ BERtarget (17)

−4
10

−5
where {Θn , ∀n = 1, 2, . . . , N } is the set of transmission
10
modes, RΘn is the rate of transmission mode Θn , BERΘn (γo )
−6
10
0 5 10 15 20
is the BER of transmission mode Θn at SNR γo and
SNR
BERtarget is the target BER. Without loss of generality, we
assume RΘ1 < RΘ2 < . . . < RΘN . Θopt is the optimal
Fig. 1. Numerical and simulation results for LDC with MMSE receiver transmission mode at SNR γo .
Below, we consider the average transmission rate using the
proposed adaptive algorithm. Let γΘn denote the minimum
which is the transformed propagation vector with components
SNR satisfying the following condition.
h0 l , l = 1, ...........Nr Nt .
The vector h0 has the same statistics as the original vector γΘn = arg min[BERΘn (γ) ≤ BERtarget )] (18)
γ
h̃i [1]. We can replace |h0 l |2 by |h̃il |2 . Now, we can write (12)
as That is, for the SNR region γΘn ≤ γ ≤ γΘn+1 , the trans-
X r N
X t Nr
|h̃il |2 mission rate RΘn (i.e., the transmission mode Θn ) should be
γ= γ̄ + γ̄ |h̃il |2 (13)
(γ̄λ l + 1) selected while the target BER is satisfied.
i=1 r+1
Then, the average transmission rate is
e IH
where r is the rank of H e H . The closed-form formula for Z
I N
X γΘn+1
the average BER in (11) is difficult to find. For example, the R̄ = RΘn pΓ (γ)dγ (19)
BERav for 2η -PSK can be written as n=1 γΘn
Z ³p
2 π ´ where pΓ (γ) is the probability density function (PDF) of
BERav = Q 2η γ sin( η ) PΓ (γ) dγ (14)
η 2 the SNR γ and γΘN +1 = ∞. Maximization of the average
and for rectangular 2η -QAM can be written as transmission rate R̄ can be solved using Lagrange multi-
Z Ãr ! pliers. However, due to the structure of both the objective
4 3η γ function and the inequality constraint, an analytical solution
BERav = Q PΓ (γ) dγ (15)
η 2η − 1 is extremely difficult to find. Therefore, we will find the
SNR region corresponding to each transmission mode by
where Q(·) denotes the Gaussian-Q function. Here, the above measurement.
average BER is calculated numerically. In Fig. 1, numerical In our simulations, we assume Nt = Nr = 4 and use the
and simulation results are compared for 8PSK over 3 × 3 and following dispersion matrices for our design
4PSK over 4×4 fading channels, respectively. As can be seen,
the numerical and simulation results match very well. M(k−1)Nt +i = diag[fk ]P−(i−1) (20)

IV. D ESIGN OF S ELECTION -M ODE A DAPTATION for k = 1, 2, . . . , Nt and i = 1, 2, . . . , Nt , P is the permutation

matrix of size Nt and given by
The general idea of selection-mode adaptation is to maxi- µ ¶
mize the average transmission rate by choosing a proper trans- 01×(Nt −1) 1
P= (21)
mission mode from a set of available modes. Based on some INt −1 0(Nt −1)×1
certain strategy, the transmitter is informed by the receiver to
increase or decrease the transmission rate depending on the where fk denotes the k-th column vector of F. F = [fmn ] is
channel condition, i.e., CSI. For selection-mode adaptation, a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) matrix and fmn is calculated
the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) will be considered as a proper by
metric. The corresponding adaptive algorithm is proposed as 1
fmn = √ exp(−2πj(m − 1)(n − 1)/Nt ) (22)
follows. Nt
1) Find the SNR, saying γo , at the receiver; First, we perform constellation adaptation alone with a fixed
2) Find the BERs of each mode at the obtained SNR γo ST symbol rate. Secondly, we perform the ST symbol rate
from BER curves by experiment; adaptation alone with a fixed constellation. Finally, we will
3) Select a proper transmission mode with the maximum consider these two parameter jointly to maximize the average
rate while satisfying the target BER; transmission rate meanwhile maintaining the target BER,
4) Feed back the selected mode to the transmitter. which is equal to 10−3 in our design examples.
 0
10 10
0 0
10 10
0

8PSK BPSK 3 Layer 2 layer

QPSK
10
−1
BPSK QPSK −1
4 layer 10
−1 3 layer
10
16QAM 10
−1 8PSK 1 layer 4 layer
16QAM 2 layer 10
−2 1 layer
−2
10 −2
10
BER

BER

BER

BER
−2 −3
10 10

−3
10 −3
10

−4
10

−3
10
−4
10 −4
10
−5
10

−4 −6
−4 −2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 10 10
−2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 −2 0 2 4 6 8 10 −2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
SNR(dB) SNR(dB) SNR(dB) SNR(dB)

(a) L/T = 1 (b) L/T = 2 (a) BPSK (Q = 1) (b) QPSK (Q = 2)

0 0 0 0
10 10 10 10

BPSK BPSK 1 layer 3 layer

QPSK QPSK 2 layer 1 layer
−1
10
8PSK 8PSK −1
10
3 layer −1
10

16QAM −1
10
16QAM 4 layer 2 layer
4 layer

BER
BER
BER

BER

−2 −2 −2
10 10 10

−2
10

−3 −3 −3
10 10 10

−3
10

−4 −4 −4
10 10 10
−5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

SNR(dB) SNR(dB) SNR(dB) SNR(dB)

(c) L/T = 3 (d) L/T = 4 (c) 8PSK (Q = 3) (d) 16QAM (Q = 4)

Fig. 2. Adaptive Constellation. Fig. 3. Adaptive ST symbol rate.

A. Adaptation Using Variable Constellations The proposed adaptive algorithm described by (16) and (17)
can be applied to ST symbol rate adaptation.
Although the system design for continuous-rate scenario Note that, this system with 4 transmit antennas can have
provide intuitive and useful guidelines [8], the associated 16 choices of ST symbol rates, i.e., ( 14 ← · · · → 16 4 ). For
constellation mapper requires high implementation complex- convenience and less complexity, we use 4 choices, i.e., TL =
ity. In practice, discrete constellations are preferable. That is, 1, 2, 3, 4. That is, Θn ∈ { TL = 1, TL = 2, TL = 3, TL = 4} with
Q only takes integer number, such as Q = 1, 2, 3, ..... For a fixed constellation. In the following context, the integer of
a given adaptive system, we can adjust the constellation to L
T is referred as “layer”. The simulation results are shown in
maximize the transmission rate meanwhile keeping the target Fig. 3, where each subfigure has its own constellation.
BER satisfied. The proposed adaptive algorithm is applied to
the case. Here, we only consider BPSK (Q = 1), QPSK (Q = V. J OINT A DAPTIVE T ECHNIQUE
2), 8PSK (Q = 3) and 16QAM (Q = 4) as examples. That As shown in the previous two subsections, either constella-
is, Θn ∈ {BP SK, QP SK, 8P SK, 16QAM } with a fixed ST tion adaptation or ST symbol rate adaptation can increase the
symbol rate. The optimal transmission mode is selected by the average transmission rate while the given BER is satisfied as
proposed adaptive algorithm, i.e., by equation (16) and (17). compared to non-adaptive schemes. However, we can further
Simulation results are shown in Fig. 2, where each subfigure improve the average transmission rate by applying a joint
has its own ST symbol rate. adaptation. The joint adaptation is performed by choosing
the best pair of constellation size and ST symbol rate. The
B. Adaptation Using Variable ST Symbol Rate available transmission modes are increased. That is,
Θn ∈ {(BP SK, TL = 1), ..., (BP SK, TL = 4),
In other existing schemes, only the orthogonal designs,
such as Alamouti scheme, are applied as the ST modulation. (QP SK, TL = 1), ..., (QP SK, TL = 4),
In this case, the most convenient adaptive parameter is the (8P SK, TL = 1), ..., (8P SK, TL = 4),
constellation size. For our adaptive scheme, the application (16QAM, TL = 1), ..., (16QAM, TL = 4)}
of LDC makes another adaptive parameter available, i.e., ST We can reduce the gap between the selection modes further
symbol rate. In this subsection, we fix the constellation size by adding more choices of the transmission rates. For the
but adjust the ST symbol rate for adaptation. Additionally, target BER, a scheme with the joint adaptation can improve
one advantage of using ST symbol rate is that it is easier to the average transmission rate significantly as compared to the
change ST symbol rate than constellation size for adaptation. two techniques in the previous subsections.
 TABLE I
It is obvious that
J OINT A DAPTATION OF ST SYMBOL RATE AND CONSTELLATION SIZE
Ā > R̄
L
T
MODE Constellation L/T Rm γQ VI. C ONCLUSIONS
0 - - - γ < −0.6309
1 BPSK 1 1 −0.6309 ≤ γ11 < −0.1893 In this paper, we proposed a new adaptive design with LDC.
2 QPSK 1 2 −0.1893 ≤ γ12 < 1.4058 We studied the statistics of SINR of LDC with MMSE receiver
3 QPSK 2 4 1.4058 ≤ γ22 < 4.4833 as a guideline. Since the LDC is applied, it makes space-
4 QPSK 3 6 4.4833 ≤ γ32 < 8.9696 time symbol rate available for adaptation. Two adaptation
5 8PSK 3 9 8.9696 ≤ γ33 < 24.2533
6 8PSK 4 12 24.2533 ≤ γ43 < 30.8208
techniques using constellation and space-time symbol rate are
7 16QAM 4 16 γ44 ≥ 30.8208 studied, respectively. With joint adaptation of space-time sym-
bol rate and constellation size, more transmission modes can
be provided to reduce rate gap among transmission modes and
We conclude the result in Table I. In the following context, thus improve the average throughput. Additionally, with space-
L
γQ denotes the SNR associated with the transmission mode
T time symbol rate of the linear dispersion code, the adaptive
with 2Q constellation and TL ST symbol rate. design can be simplified and various levels of diversity and
From the simulation results, we have the following obser- multiplexing gain can be provided. Simulation results were
vations: provided to demonstrate merits of the joint adaptation of
constellation and space-time symbol rate.
• If the ST symbol rate is reduced, the slope of the
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