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Procedia
Engineering
Procedia Engineering 00 (2011) 000–000
Procedia Engineering 30 (2012) 242 – 247
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

International Conference on Communication Technology and System Design 2011

Distribution and Density Functions of Capacity for

Layered Space Time Architecture
J.Subhashinia ,Vidhyacharan Bhaskarb, a*
a,b
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering,
SRM University, Kattankulathur, Kancheepuram Dt. 603203,

Abstract

In wireless communications spectrum is a scarce resource, and hence imposes a high cost on high data rate
transmission. With the emergence of multiple antenna system, another very resourceful dimension-space was utilized
for information transmission in air. It has been proved that multiple antenna systems provide higher gain in capacity
without increasing the use of spectrum, reliability, throughput, power consumption and less sensitivity to fading,
therefore leading to high data rates of wireless communication systems, which is the most sorted outcome of all
research work. The study of performance limits of Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) system becomes most
important to design and understanding MIMO systems. There are many schemes that can be applied to MIMO
systems, such as space time block codes, space time trellis codes and Layered Space Time Architecture. In this paper,
the performance of general MIMO system based on Layered Space Time Architecture is studied. For different
number of transmit and receive antennas, the Probability Density Function (pdf) and Cumulative Distribution
Function (cdf) distributions for capacity of different layers for different SNRs were analyzed and plotted.

© 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of ICCTSD 2011
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Keywords: Multiple Input Multiple Output Systems; Layered Space Time Architecture; Probability Density Function;
Cumulative Distribution Function.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1. Introduction

The employment of multiple antennas at both the transmitter and the receiver provides a cost effective
approach to high throughput wireless communications. The concept of MIMO for both wired and wireless
systems was first introduced in [1]-[3]. In Layered Architecture, a primitive data stream was
demultiplexed into n data streams of equal rate. Each data stream was encoded differently using n

* J.Subhashini. Tel.: +91-9962185711.

E-mail address: subhasivagayaj@gmail.com.
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1877-7058 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2012.01.857
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antennas without the need to share information with each other. The n encoded sub streams were sent
through n paths to the receiver. The bit stream and the antenna association were periodically cycled. The
dwelling time on each association was t seconds, so that a full cycle took n x t seconds to complete [4]. At
the receiver, these signals were successively decoded using Zero Forcing (ZF) Detector or Minimum
Mean Square Error (MMSE) Detector and their interference was cancelled [5, 6]. The complexity of these
architectures increases with the number of antennas. Also, successive decoding favours different antennas
depending on the decoding order. Each transmit antenna communicates with a distinct propagation
channel in a layered architecture. So, optimum capacity could be reached only if the radiated signals are
cycled around the transmit antennas, so that each signal gets exposed to every transmit antenna [7].
In the above original layered system described, the input data was evenly divided into sub streams and
all layers have the same code rate. Due to loss of signal energy and degree of freedom by nulling, the
channel quality of layers detected first were frequently poor, and could not support reliable transmission
with the given layer data rate. So, the layers detected earlier were more error prone [8]. As a remedy to the
above problem, optimum detection ordering [9][10] was proposed in which the layer with the best channel
capacity among all layers was detected first. But it was computationally intensive to make optimum
detection ordering due to variations of channel responses for different subcarriers, eg. in the case of
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). Secondly, the channel quality difference tends to
decrease with increasing frequency selectivity making the gain of optimum detection ordering less
pronounced.
Rate adaptation and/or power allocation for layered structures [11][12] based on instantaneous post
processing of Signal to Interference Ratio (SINR) led to an interesting fact that with MMSE interference
nulling, and properly selected rate for each layer, the sum of capacities of all the layers is exactly the open
loop capacity [13][14]. But, to achieve open loop capacity, instantaneous rate feedback was needed, which
introduced transmission overhead. Also, for fast fading environments up to the desired date rate, feedback
was not feasible, and variations of layer capacities tended to decrease. So, open loop capacity can be
obtained by determining the rate for each layer based on the knowledge of the channel statistics, but not
on the actual realizations. This paper depends on statistical instead of instantaneous channel information.
So, frequent feedback is not required and explicit feedback is not necessary. Also, the PDF and CDF for
Nt transmit and Nr receive antennas is studied for different layers, l, which corresponds to the number of
transmit antennas.

2. System Model

For a flat-fading MIMO system with Nt transmit and Nr receive antennas, the relationship between the
transmitted and received signals can be expressed as
r = Hs + n, (1)
where r is an Nr x 1 received signal vector, s is an Nt x 1 transmitted signal vector, and H is an Nr x Nt
channel matrix with entries being independent complex Gaussian random variables with zero mean and
unit variance. The Nr x 1 noise vector n has entries that are independent and identically distributed (i.i.d)
zero-mean circular complex Gaussian random variables with variance N0. Assuming that each transmit
antenna has the same transmit power, the instantaneous open-loop channel capacity is then [15]
C(H,SNR)=log2det(INR+(SNR/Nt)HHH). (2)
The detection in layered systems is carried out sequentially. To detect the lth layer, inter antenna
interference from the detected layers is cancelled from the received signal by subtracting the reconstructed
signals as given below:
rl = r- hmsm= rl-1-hl-1 sl-1, m< l, (3)
where sm is the reconstructed signal of the decoded layers and the lth column of H is denoted as hl.
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3. Capacity PDF and CDF distributions of Layered Architecture

In the proposed approach, the detection order is fixed, and the data rate for each layer is adjusted
according to the channel quality and detection order of that layer. Assume that the order of detection of
received signal is from transmit antenna 1 to Nt i.e. l=1 to Nt. The instantaneous information rate to be
allocated to the transmit antennas is [16], [17], [18]
Cl =log2det (INR + (SNR/Nt) H l-1H l-1 H) - log2det (INR + (SNR/Nt) Hl HlH), (4)
where Hl = [hl+1 hl+2 ,…., hNt]. It is obvious that H0=H.
It has been observed by various researchers that the distribution of capacity of a MIMO channel,
Rayleigh or Rician, can be accurately approximated by a Gaussian distribution at medium and high SNRs
[19], [20]. Similarly, the distributions of instantaneous layer capacity can be approximated by Gaussian
distributions, denoted as
Cl N ( l , l 2), (5)
2
where l and l are the mean and variance of the capacity of the lth layer, respectively. The mean and
variance can be computed easily by taking enough samples of the channel parameters since the system can
get this information from past channel observations.
After obtaining the mean and variance for each layer capacity for a number of independent
channel realisations, the various distributions for channel capacity such as pdf, cdf, Complementary
Cumulative Distribution Function (ccdf) of layered space time structure for particular transmit and receive
antennas is analyzed. Then a comparison study is made between the various distributions for channel
capacity, such as pdf, cdf, ccdf for different numbers of transmit and receive antennas for different SNRs.

4. Numerical Results

Firstly, the capacity pdf for Nt = 4 and Nr = 4 antennas for layers l = 1, 2, 3, 4 is simulated. Figure 1
shows the plot of capacity pdf vs. Cth, which is the threshold capacity for different layers. It is observed
that the pdf is maximum at a particular value of capacity threshold, Cth, for each layer and the value of Cth
increases as the number of layers increases, i.e., as the number of transmit antennas increases. From
Figure 1, it is inferred that the threshold capacity is higher for layered structure, and the capacity rate
increases with increase in the number of layers. Comparing Figure 1 (a) with 1(b), 1(c), 1(d) shows that as
the number of layers increases, the PDF shifts to the right and becomes narrower. It is also observed that
the amplitude of PDF also increases. This is because of the fact that l corresponds to the transmit antenna
diversity index, and as the number of transmit antennas increases, the probability of reception of data at
the receive antennas through a good channel also increases.
Secondly, the capacity pdf for Nt =4 and Nr=8 antennas for layers l = 1, 2, 3, 4 is simulated. Figure 2
shows the plot of capacity pdf vs. Cth for Nt = 4 and Nr = 8 antennas for layers 1 to Nt. Comparing Figures
2(a) with 2(b), (c) and (d), it is observed that the PDF increases as l increases and also shifts towards the
right i.e.; the Cth for Nr=8 increases as the number of layers increases. Comparing Figures 1 and 2, it is
observed that the PDF increases as Nr increases. It is also observed that the peaks of the PDF distribution
becomes narrower for Nr=8 compared to Nr=4. This is due to the fact that as the number of receive
antenna increases, there is a fair chance for the data to be received with higher strength at least by any one
of the Nr receive antennas. Thus, the probability of reception improves with more number of receive
antennas. Ultimately, it becomes clear that capacity also increases as the number of receive antennas
increases. Comparing Figures 1 and 2, it is also concluded that the capacity improvement is higher for
increase in the number of receive antennas as compared to that as in the number of transmit antennas.
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Thirdly, the capacity cdf for the four cases, Nt = 4 and Nr = 2, 4, 8, 12 are simulated and the results are
plotted. It is observed from Figure 3 that the graphs get closer to each other for higher Cth, and at higher
SNRs. This is because, P(C Cth) is positive for all layers and gets accumulated to form the cdf. Also, the
graphs of the four layers get closer to one another as the number of receive antennas increases. This is due
to the decrease in channel quality difference with increasing frequency selectivity, successive decoding
and interference cancellation.
Finally, the capacity ccdf is plotted and analyzed in Figure 4. The ccdf decreases with increase in SNRs
and Cth. This is because the CCDF is the complement of CDF i.e. CCDF=1-CDF. So, from Figure 3, it is
observed that the CDF increases with Cth. Figure 4 shows a decrease in CCDF as Cth increases.

5. Conclusion:

This paper emphasizes the need for MIMO systems to be used to obtain better capacity and bandwidth
utilization. The PDF distributions clearly show that with the increase in the number of receive antennas, Nr,
capacity improvement can be observed. This fact is also confirmed by the CDF distributions. Thus,
increase in the number of transmit and receive antennas, increases the capacity of layered space time
structure.

PDF vs Cth with Nr=4 and Nt=4&l=1 PDF vs Cth with Nr=4 and Nt=4&l=2 PDF vs Cth with Nr=8 and Nt=4&l=1 PDF vs Cth with Nr=8 and Nt=4&l=2
0.4 0.8 0.8 0.8

0.3 0.6 0.6 0.6

PDF

PDF

PDF

PDF
0.2 0.4 0.4 0.4

0.1 0.2 0.2 0.2

0 0 0 0
0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10
Cth Cth Cth Cth
PDF vs Cth with Nr=4 and Nt=4&l=3 PDF vs Cth with Nr=4 and Nt=4&l=4 PDF vs Cth with Nr=8 and Nt=4&l=3 PDF vs Cth with Nr=8 and Nt=4&l=4
0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6

PDF

PDF

PDF

PDF

0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2

0 0 0 0
0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10
Cth Cth Cth Cth

Figure 1: pdf vs. Cth for Nt=4 and Nr=4 for l=1, 2, 3,4 Figure 2: pdf vs. Cth for Nt=4 and Nr=8 for l= 1, 2, 3, 4
cdf vs cth with Nr=2 and Nt=4 cdf vs cth with Nr=4 and Nt=4 ccdf vs cth with Nr=2 and Nt=4 ccdf vs cth with Nr=4 and Nt=4
1 1 1 1
l=1 l=1
l=2 l=2
l=3 l=3
0.5 l=1 0.5 l=4 0.5 l=4 0.5 l=1
cdf

cdf

cdf

cdf

l=2 l=2
l=3 l=3
l=4 l=4
0 0 0 0
0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10
cth cth cth cth
cdf vs cth with Nr=8 and Nt=4 cdf vs cth with Nr=12 and Nt=4 ccdf vs cth with Nr=8 and Nt=4 ccdf vs cth with Nr=12 and Nt=4
1 1 1 1
l=1 l=1
l=2 l=2
l=3 l=1 l=1
l=3
0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5
cdf

cdf

cdf

cdf

l=4 l=2 l=2

l=4
l=3 l=3
l=4 l=4
0 0 0 0
0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10
cth cth cth cth

Figure 3: cdf vs. Cth for Nt=4 and Nr=2, 4,8,12 for l= 1, 2, 3, 4 Figure 4: CCDF vs. Cth for Nt=4 and Nr=2, 4,8,12 for l= 1, 2, 3,

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