112 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 5, NO.
1, JANUARY 2006
Capacity of MIMO Rician Channels
Ming Kang and Mohamed-Slim Alouini, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper presents exact results on the capacity
of multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) Rician channels when
perfect channel state information (CSI) is assumed at the receiver
but the transmitter has neither instantaneous nor statistical CSI. It
first derives the exact expression for the average mutual informa-
tion (MI) rate of MIMO Rician fading channels when the fading
coefficients are independent but not necessarily identically distrib-
uted. The results for the independent and identically distributed
(i.i.d.) MIMO Rician and Rayleigh fading channels are also ob-
tained as special cases. These results are derived using a different
approach than the one used by Telatar for the i.i.d. Rayleigh case.
The complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF) of
the MI is also obtained using a Gaussian approximation. The CDF
of MI can serve as an upper bound to the outage probability of
nonergodic MIMO Rician channels. Numerical results confirm
that for a fixed channel gain, a strong line-of-sight component
decreases the channel capacity due to the lack of scattering.
Index Terms—Capacity, moment generating function, multiple-
input–multiple-output (MIMO), outage capacity, Rician fading.
I. I NTRODUCTION
W IRELESS communication systems equipped with mul-
tiple antennas at both the transmitter and the receiver
have the potential of providing exceptional spectral efficiency
[1]–[3] and as such have attracted much research activity
recently (e.g., [4], [5], and references therein). Specifically,
Foschini and Gans [2] and Teletar [3] showed that in an
independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) Rayleigh fading
environment, the capacity of a multiple-input–multiple-output
(MIMO) system with T antennas at the transmitter and R
antennas at the receiver scales almost linearly with min(T, R)
in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime, i.e., the capacity
C ≈ min(T, R) log2 (SNR) bits/s/Hz. This capacity growth po-
tential is remarkable since each 3-dB increase in transmit SNR
will result in a roughly min(T, R) b/s/Hz capacity increase in
comparison to 1 b/s/Hz capacity gain in single-antenna systems.
The fundamental reason behind this capacity increase is that
when a MIMO system operates in a rich scattering environ-
ment, channel coefficients between individual transmit/receive
Manuscript received September 23, 2003; revised October 12, 2004;
accepted October 27, 2004. The editor coordinating the review of this paper
and approving it for publication is H. Boelcskei. This work was supported
in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant CCR-9983462. This
paper was presented in part at the 40th Annual Conference on Communication,
Control, and Computing, Monticello, IL, October 2002.
M. Kang was with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA. He is now with
Qualcomm Inc., San Diego, CA 92121 USA (e-mail: mkang@qualcomm.com).
M.-S. Alouini was with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA. He is now
with Texas A&M-Qatar, Education City, Doha, Qatar (e-mail: alouini@qatar.
ramu.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TWC.2005.858042
1536-1276/$20.00 © 2006 IEEE
antenna pairs tend to fade independently and are therefore
likely to form multiple parallel channels allowing several in-
dependent data streams to be transmitted simultaneously. In
other words, MIMO systems exploit the fading phenomenon
inherent in wireless channels (which was traditionally viewed
as a destructive factor) to increase the degrees of freedom for
communications [2], [3].
Channel capacity is defined as the maximum rate at which
data can be transmitted at an arbitrarily small error probability.
The capacity of MIMO channels has been well studied for the
i.i.d. Rayleigh scenario [2], [3]. On the other hand, in practice,
MIMO channels do not always satisfy the i.i.d. Rayleigh fading
condition. In reality, there is often a line-of-sight (LOS) path
between the transmitter and the receiver, and in such fading
conditions, the channel is rather described by the Rician fading
model. Mathematically, the random channel matrix in a MIMO
Rician-faded channel is a complex Gaussian matrix with a
nonzero mean matrix, unlike in an i.i.d. Rayleigh-faded MIMO
channel where the channel matrix is of zero mean. Clearly,
the Rayleigh fading model can be viewed as a special case of
the Rician fading model by setting the mean to zero. To get a
more realistic assessment of the capacity-increasing potential
of MIMO channels, it is important to evaluate this capacity
in a Rician fading environment. However, it seems difficult
to extend the analysis approach used by Telatar in [3] for the
derivation of the ergodic channel capacity in an i.i.d. Rayleigh
fading environment for this more general MIMO Rician fading
scenario.
In this paper, we address this particular problem by studying
the capacity of MIMO Rician fading channels using a different
approach. While more specific line-of-sight matrix models
are considered in [6] and [7], we consider the line-of sight
matrix in a more abstract fashion. To be specific, we assume
that the elements of transmit/receive antennas are all spatially
separated enough so that the scattering components are i.i.d.
On the other hand, we allow the specular path gains to be
nonidentical. We focus on the scenario where perfect channel
state information (CSI) can be tracked at the receiver but
assume that the transmitter does not have any CSI and therefore
the scheme of transmitting multiple spatially white complex
Gaussian inputs (or the equal-power transmission) is used. A
justification of using equal-power allocation when the transmit-
ter does not have any CSI was given in [8] for a multiple-input
single-output (SIMO) spatially correlated channel in which
the equal-power allocation scheme was shown to be a robust
transmission scheme maximizing the capacity of the worst fad-
ing correlation matrix, or the “maxmin” property. For MIMO
channels, Palomar et al. [9] showed based on a game theo-
retic argument that the equal-power allocation has the maxmin
property for MIMO correlated channels. The same holds
KANG AND ALOUINI: CAPACITY OF MIMO RICIAN CHANNELS 113

for MIMO Rician channels [10]. We follow the formulation where y ∈ C R is the received vector, n is the complex additive
in [2] and [11]–[13] that treats the mutual information (MI) with white Gaussian noise (AWGN) vector with zero mean and co-
equal-power allocation as a random variable (RV) depending variance matrix σn2 I R , where I R is the R × R identity matrix.
on each channel realization and study the statistics of this RV H denotes the R × T channel gain matrix with {H}i,j being
(its mean, variance, and complementary cumulative distribution the complex channel gain from the jth transmitter antenna
function, or CCDF). In particular, we derive the exact moment element to the ith receiver antenna element. x is the transmit-
generating function (MGF) of the MI and use this MGF to ted vector with the power constraint E(xH x) ≤ Ω, where
obtain the mean of the MI.1 Furthermore, that the MI of an (·)H denotes the conjugate transpose operator and E(·) is the
i.i.d. Rayleigh MIMO channel is approximately Gaussian was expected value.
observed in [12] and [13] and analytically justified in [14]. It In this work, we assume that the bandwidth occupied by
was found that this Gaussian approximation is very accurate the transmitted signals is much less than the channel coherent
even for MIMO channels with small numbers of antennas. bandwidth so that channel fading is regarded as frequency
Smith and Shafi [12] also observed that this Gaussian approxi- nonselective. We further assume that for each use of the channel
mation works well for a MIMO Rician channel. The Gaussian an independent realization of H is drawn and remains fixed
approximation to the MI of a Rician MIMO channel with during this channel use.
rank-one mean matrix was further investigated and explained
in [15]. Based on these results, in this paper we use the first
two moments of MI to approximate the MI CCDF of MIMO A. MI and Capacity of MIMO Channels
Rician channels and observe from numerical examples that the We assume that realizations of H are known at the receiver
Gaussian approximation is accurate for MIMO Rician channels. but not at the transmitter. In this case, the MI is given by
The cumulative distribution function (CDF, which is 1-CCDF)


obtained in this work can serve as an upper bound to the outage 1
I = log2 det I R + 2 HKH H
b/s/Hz (2)
probability under the capacity versus outage (or the outage σn
capacity) formulation (see [16]) for nonergodic channels [17].
Before the end of this introduction, we would like to point out where
some independent related works that were published simultane-
K = E(xxH ). (3)
ously to the abbreviated (conference) version of this paper [18].
The MGF of the MI with equal-power allocation for the i.i.d. Under the transmitting power constraint Ω, we have
Rayleigh MIMO channel was also obtained independently in
[13] and [19]. The ergodic capacity of the MIMO i.i.d. Rician tr(K) ≤ Ω (4)
channel was independently studied in [20], and this capacity
was derived when the random channel matrix is of rank 1 or where tr(·) is the trace operator. Given that realizations of
2. In this paper, we use a different analytical approach than the H are not known at the transmitter, we can transmit multiple
one developed in [13], [19], and [20], and consider the general independent complex Gaussian data streams and split the total
non-i.i.d. Rician case with arbitrary number of transmit/receive power equally among them, which is referred to “equal-power
antennas. transmission”. In such a case, K is given by
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section II
describes the systems model and the problem statement. Ω
K= IT . (5)
Section III presents the statistics of the MI for the non-i.i.d. T
Rician MIMO channel. Section IV reduces the results to the The MI with this equal-power allocation transmission is there-
i.i.d. Rician and Rayleigh MIMO channels as special cases. fore given by
Section V provides some numerical examples to illustrate the



mathematical formalism and the effect of Rician fading on the Ω
capacity of MIMO channels. Finally, Section VI summarizes I = log2 det I R + HH H
b/s/Hz. (6)
T σn2
the paper with some concluding remarks.
The MI I with equal-power allocation given in (6) is an RV
depending on channel realizations, and it is interesting to study
II. S YSTEM M ODEL AND P ROBLEM S TATEMENT its statistics, in particular its mean E(I) and its CCDF [2], [4],
We consider a single-user Gaussian channel with T antennas [11]–[13]. Note that when the channel is ergodic, only the first-
at the transmitter and R antennas at the receiver and refer to it order statistics of the MI is needed to characterize the channel
as a T × R MIMO channel. It is well known that such channel and is given by
can be modeled as
C = E(I)
y = Hx + n (1) 

Ω H
= EH log2 det I R + HH . (7)
1 Strictly T σn2
speaking, although we do not assume any CSI at the transmitter in
this paper, there still exists a better covariance than the equal power allocation,
and therefore the average mutual information rate achieved by the spatial white In the next section, we present the statistics of the MI with
complex Gaussian inputs is a lower bound to the ergodic capacity in this sense. equal-power transmission for MIMO Rician channels.
114 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 5, NO. 1, JANUARY 2006

III. S TATISTICS OF THE MI OF MIMO R ICIAN C HANNELS and the entries of the s × s matrix Ψ(τ ) are defined by
If there is a line of sight path between the transmitter and
∞
the receiver, the channel is usually described by the Rician τ
{Ψ(τ )}i,j = y t−i (1 + ρy) ln(2) e−y 0 F1 (t − s + 1, yλj )dy,
fading model. The channel matrix for a MIMO Rician channel
is a complex Gaussian matrix with a nonzero mean matrix. 0

If we further assume that antenna elements are sufficiently i, j = 1, . . . , s (12)

separated spatially so that the scattering components of fad-
ing coefficients are i.i.d., then the channel matrix H is an
R × T complex Gaussian matrix whose columns are indepen-
dent complex Gaussian vectors with covariance matrix Σ =
σ 2 I R . The mean matrix E(H) = M . Note that M entries can
be nonidentical. We refer to this fading scenario as “non-i.i.d.
Rician fading” to stress that the specular path gains between
individual transmit/receive antenna pairs can be different. We
first derive the MGF of I in what follows.
A. MGF of the MI
Performing singular decomposition, I defined in (6) can be
written as
where 0 F1 (·, ·) is the generalized hypergeometric function
p Fq (a1 , . . . , ap , b1 , . . . , bq , z) defined in [21, eq. (9.14.1)] with
the parameters p = 0 and q = 1, ln(·) is the natural logarithm
function, and
Ωσ 2
ρ= (13)
σn2 T
is the normalized transmitting SNR per transmitter branch.
This MGF converges for Re(τ ) ≤ 0. Further manipulations on
(10) can lead to some approximations. Since the average MI
is the first derivative of MGF evaluated at τ = 0, the same
relationship is true for the average MI.


min(T,R)

Ω B. Moments of the MI
I= log2 1 + φk (8)
T σn2
k=1 With the MGF in hand, the nth moment of I, E(I n ), can be
obtained by
where 0 < φ1 < φ2 <, . . . , < φmin(T,R) are the ordered

nonzero eigenvalues of the Hermitian matrix HH H . ndn (MI (τ ))

To simplify the notation, we denote t = max(T, R), E(I ) =

. (14)
dτ n τ =0
s = min(T, R), and the joint probability density function
(pdf) of φk , k = 1, . . . , s, as fφ1 ,...,φs (φ1 , . . . , φs ). The MGF Derivatives of the determinant can be taken in a column (row)
of I, E(eτ I ), can be computed as by column (row) fashion based on the product rule. For ex-
 ample, when deriving the mean of I, we first differentiate the

s
τ entries in the first column of Ψ, {Ψ}i,1 , i = 1, . . . , s, with
E(eτ I ) = (1 + φk ) ln(2)
respect to τ , i.e.,
0<φ1 <...<φs <∞ k=1

× fφ1 ,...,φs (φ1 , . . . , φs )dφ1 . . . dφs . (9) ∞

d τ
y t−i (1 + ρy) ln(2) e−y 0 F1 (t − s + 1, yλ1 )dy. (15)
dτ
We show in Appendix B that (in the general case when the 0
noncentrality matrix of H, M H Σ−1 M , has s nonzero ordered
eigenvalues 0 < λ1 < λ2 < . . . < λs < ∞)2 the MGF of I It can be shown by the Dominated Convergence Theorem
in (9) can be obtained in the determinant form that the differentiation and integration can be interchanged so
that (15) becomes
e−tr(Λ)
E(eτ I ) = det (Ψ(τ )) (10) ∞
(Γ(t − s + 1))s det(V ) d  t−i τ

y (1 + ρy) ln(2) e−y 0 F1 (t − s + 1, yλ1 ) dy
dτ
where Γ(·) is the gamma function [21, eq. (8.31.1)], Λ = 0

diag(λ1 , . . . , λs ), V is an s × s matrix whose determinant is ∞

1 τ
given by = y t−i ln(1 + ρy)(1 + ρy) ln(2)
ln(2)
  0

det(V ) = det λs−j

i = (λi − λj ) (11) × e−y 0 F1 (t − s + 1, yλ1 )dy
1≤i<j≤s
(τ = 0) :
∞
1
= y t−i ln(1 + ρy)
2 We refer to it as the general case since results when some of λ s are identical ln(2)
i 0
can be obtained as limiting cases of this general result, as we shall see in the
treatments of the i.i.d. Rician and the i.i.d. Rayleigh fading scenarios. × e−y 0 F1 (t − s + 1, yλ1 )dy. (16)
KANG AND ALOUINI: CAPACITY OF MIMO RICIAN CHANNELS 115

The entries in the second, . . . , sth columns are evaluated where Ψ(k, l), k, l = 1, . . . , s, are s × s matrices with entries
directly at τ = 0 and we get for j = 2, . . . , s
∞ {Ψ(k, l)}i,j
y t−i −y
e − s + 1, yλj )dy ∞
0 F1 (t

 y t−i ln2 (1 + ρy)e−y
 0

0 
 × F (t − s + 1, yλj )dy, j =k=l
∞ 0 1

= Γ(t − i + 1)1 F1 (t − i + 1, t − s + 1, λj ) (17) t−i −y
= 0 y ln(1 + ρy)e
.

 × F (t − s + 1, yλj )dy, j = k or j = l; k = l
where 1 F1 (·, ·, ·) is the confluent hypergeometric function [21, 

0 1

 Γ(t − i + 1)
eq. (9.210.1)]. We denote the resulting determinant after such 

operations as Ψ(1) (the “1” inside the parenthesis means that × 1 F1 (t−i+1, t−s+1, λj ), j = k; j = l
the derivative is taken in the first column). Similarly, we can (21)
get Ψ(k), k = 2, . . . , s. The sum of these determinants gives
the derivative Ψ evaluated at τ = 0. In summary, we obtain the
The Gaussian-approximated CCDF of the MI Iccdf with
mean of the MI with equal-power allocation as
equal-power allocation can now be obtained as
e−tr(Λ)  s
E(I) = s det (Ψ(k)) (18) Iccdf = Pr(I ≥ Ith )
ln(2) (Γ(t − s + 1)) det(V )
k=1  
1 Ith − E(I)
where Ψ(k), k = 1, . . . , s, are s × s matrices with entries = erfc  (22)
2 2 Var(I)
  ∞ t−i

 y ln(1 + ρy)e−y
 0 × F (t−s+1, yλ )dy, j=k
0 1 j where the variance of the MI Var(I) can be computed as
{Ψ(k)}i,j = (19)

 Γ(t − i + 1)

× 1 F1 (t−i+1, t−s+1, λj ), j = k. Var(I) = E(I 2 ) − (E(I))2

C. CCDF of the MI and erfc(·) is the complementary error function defined by

In addition to the mean MI, it is also interesting to know
the CCDF of the MI, i.e., with what probability the MI will
exceed a predetermined rate threshold [3], [4], [11]–[13]. Un-
fortunately, expressions for this CCDF are difficult to obtain
explicitly even for the simplest MIMO i.i.d. fading channels.
However, since the MGF is known, the CCDF of the MI can be
directly computed with the help of numerical inverse Laplace
transform algorithms given for example in [23] and [24]. On
the other hand, it was observed in [12] and [13] that the MI
with equal-power allocation can be accurately approximated
by a Gaussian RV. The implication of this result is that only
the first and the second moments of the MI are needed to
get an accurate estimate of the MI CCDF. The variance of
the MI for i.i.d. MIMO Rayleigh channels was then derived,
together with the mean MI result in [3], to obtain the Gaussian-
approximated CCDF of the MI [12], [13]. It was also observed
by simulations that this approximation works well even for
MIMO Rician channels [12]. An analytical justification of the
Gaussian approximation can be found in [14]. With the mean
MI in hand, we only need the second moment of the MI that can
be obtained by taking the second-order derivative in the MGF
result in (10). Following a similar procedure to the one used
above to derive the mean MI, we obtain the second moment of
the MI E(I 2 ) as
e−tr(Λ)
E(I 2 ) =
ln2 (2) (Γ(t − s + 1))s det(V )

s 
s semidefinite Q with the constraint tr(Q) ≤ Ω and the probabil-
× det (Ψ(k, l))
k=1 l=1
∞
2
erfc(x) = √ exp(−t2 )dt. (23)
π
x
This function is a standard built-in function in many popular
scientific computation softwares such as Matlab and Mathemat-
ica. Since the inverse complementary error function is also built
in Matlab and Mathematica, we can obtain the approximated
maximum supportable rate at a given MI outage probability.
For example, the approximated maximum rate that can be
supported by equal-power allocation transmission at the outage
probability 1 − α (i.e., Pr(I > Ith
α
) = α) can be computed as

Ith
α
= 2Var(I)erfc−1 (2α) + E(I)
where erfc−1 (·) is the inverse complementary error function.
When the channel is nonergodic, i.e., H is randomly drawn
but remains fixed for all channel uses, the capacity in the
Shannon sense does not exist since no matter how small the
rate threshold would be there is always a nonzero probability
that the channel cannot support this threshold [3]. The ca-
pacity versus outage formulation, or the outage capacity, is
often used to characterize such channels [16]. Specifically, the
outage probability of a nonergodic MIMO channel is defined
by inf Pr(log2 det(I R + HQH H ) < Rth ) at a given target
rate threshold Rth , where the infimum is taken over all positive
(20) ity is taken over all realizations of the random matrix H. The
optimum Q is in general not known [3]. The outage probability
116 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 5, NO. 1, JANUARY 2006

of MI obtained by 1 − Iccdf serves as an upper bound to the where Ψc (τ ) is an s × s Hankel matrix function of τ with
outage probability of nonergodic MIMO Rician channels under entries given by
the capacity versus outage formulation [17].
{Ψc (τ )}i,j
∞
IV. S PECIAL C ASES : IID R ICIAN AND IID R AYLEIGH τ

MIMO C HANNELS = (1 + ρy) ln(2) y t+s−i−j e−y dy

0
When the noncentrality matrix M H Σ−1 M has some identi-
cal nonzero eigenvalues or has less than s nonzero eigenvalues, = ρ−(t+s−i−j+1) Γ(t + s − i − j + 1)
the result can be obtained by taking the limit in (10). We

τ 1
will explicitly derive the important special case when H has × U t + s − i − j + 1, t + s − i − j + 2 + , ,
ln(2) ρ
i.i.d. entries, in which case M H Σ−1 M has only one nonzero
eigenvalue, say λ1 , in order to give an example to illustrate the i, j = 1, . . . , s. (28)
techniques involved.

B. Moments of the MI
A. MGF of the MI The nth moment of I, E(I n ), can now be obtained from
1) IID Rician: If the fading is i.i.d. Rician, i.e., {H}i,j ∼ the MGFs.
CN (η, σ 2 ), then M H Σ−1 M has only one nonzero eigen- 1) IID Rayleigh: The mean MI (ergodic capacity) for the
value λ1 = st|η|2 /σ 2 , where | · | denotes the modulus of a i.i.d. Rayleigh fading channel can be shown to be given by
complex number. Note that K = |η|2 /σ 2 is the Rician factor
of the path between each transmit/receive antenna pair. As 1
E(I) = s
shown in Appendix C, E(eτ I ) of this i.i.d. Rician fading case ln(2) m=1 Γ(t − m + 1)Γ(s − m + 1)
reduces to 
s
× det (Ψc (k)) (29)
−λ1 k=1
e det (Ψi.i.d. (τ ))
E(eτ I ) = s−1 s−1 (24)
Γ(t − s + 1)λ1 m=1 Γ(t − m)Γ(s − m) where Ψc (k), k = 1, . . . , s, are s × s matrices whose entries
are defined by
where Ψi.i.d. (τ ) is an s × s matrix whose entries in the first  1
column are the same as those of Ψ(τ ) defined by (12), i.e.,  Γ(t + s − i − j + 1)e
 ρ

t+s−i−j+1 Γ(m−(t+s−i−j+1), ρ1 )
{Ψc (k)}i,j = × m=1 , j=k .

 ρ(t+s−i−j+1)−m
{Ψi.i.d. (τ )}i,1 = {Ψ(τ )}i,1 , i = 1, . . . , s (25) Γ(t + s − i − j + 1), j = k
(30)
and the entries from the second column to the sth column are
given by The second moment of the capacity for the i.i.d. Rayleigh
case can be shown to be given by
{Ψi.i.d. (τ )}i,j
1
∞ E(I 2 ) = s
τ
= (1 + ρy) ln(2) y t+s−i−j e−y dy ln2 (2) m=1 Γ(t − m + 1)Γ(s − m + 1)
0 
s 
s
× det (Ψc (k, l)) (31)
= ρ−(t+s−i−j+1) Γ(t + s − i − j + 1) k=1 l=1


τ 1
× U t + s − i − j + 1, t + s − i − j + 2 + , where Ψc (k, l), k, l = 1, . . . , s, are s × s matrices whose en-
ln(2) ρ
tries are defined by
i = 1, . . . , s; j = 2, . . . , s (26)
{Ψc (k, l)}i,j
where U(·, ·, ·) is the confluent hypergeometric function of the   ∞ t+s−i−j 2
second kind [21, eq. (9.210.2)]. 
 0 y ln (1 + ρy)e−y dy, j=k=l


2) IID Rayleigh: When E(H) = 0 (i.i.d. Rayleigh fading  Γ(t + s − i − j + 1)e ρ1
case), we show in Appendix D that the MGF of MI reduces to =
 t+s−i−j+1 Γ(m−(t+s−i−j+1), ρ1 )
 × m=1
 , j = k or l; k = l


ρ(t+s−i−j+1)−m

det (Ψc (τ )) Γ(t + s − i − j + 1), j = k; j = l

MI (τ ) = s (27)
m=1 Γ(t − m + 1)Γ(s − m + 1) (32)
KANG AND ALOUINI: CAPACITY OF MIMO RICIAN CHANNELS 117

where the integral can be evaluated in terms of Meijer’s using the same steps as above in (34) and using the identity (41),
G-function defined in [21, eq. (9.301)] with the help of the variance of the MI with equal-power allocation in the i.i.d.
that in (41). Rayleigh case can be written as
We double checked that the ergodic capacity of the i.i.d.
1  (t − s + k)!e ρ
s−1 1
Rayleigh case given by (29) is equivalent numerically to
Var(I) =
Telatar’s result, that is [3] ln (2) k=0 [(t − s)!]2 k!
2

∞  l 
1  2k  (−k)m (−k)l−m
E(I) = ln(1 + ρy)e−y ×
ln(2) m=0
(t−s+1)m m!(t−s+1)l−m (l−m)!
0 l=0

 

t−s+l t−s+l+1

t−s+l

k!y t−s  t−s 2
s−1 1
× L (y) dy (33) ×2 (−1)q G43 04
(k + t − s)! k q=0
ρ q
k=0


1

q−(t−s+l),q−(t−s+l),q−(t−s+l)
where Lan (·) is the generalized Laguerre polynomial [25] that ×
can be written in terms of the incomplete Gamma function as ρ
0,q−(t−s+l+1),q−(t−s+l+1),q−(t−s+l+1)
we show next. Using the functional relation between the gener-
1 
s−1 s−1
alized Laguerre polynomial and the confluent hypergeometric i!j!
−
function given in [21, eq. (9.972.1)], noting that the resulting ln (2) i=0 j=0 (t − s + i)!(t − s + j)!
2

confluent hypergeometric function terminates as a finite sum 

because its first parameter is a negative integer, and integrating (t − s + 1)i (t − s + 1)j ρ1
term by term with the help of identity (40), we can show after × e
i!j!
some additional manipulations that (33) can be written in terms
of complementary incomplete gamma functions as  i j
(−i)k (−j)l (t − s + k + l)!
×
(t − s + 1)k (t − s + 1)l k!l!
1  (t − s + k)!e ρ
s−1 1
k=0 l=0
E(I) =  
ln(2) [(t − s)!]2 k!
k=0 
t−s+k+l+1 Γ q−(t−s+k+l+1), ρ1 2

  × .

2k 
l q=0
ρ(t−s+k+l+1)−q
(−k)m (−k)l−m (t−s+l)!
×
(t−s+1) m m!(t−s+1)l−m (l−m)! (36)
l=0 m=0


t−s+l+1
 2) IID Rician: For the i.i.d. Rician case, the mean MI can
1 q−(t−s+l+1) be shown to be
× Γ q−(t−s+l+1), ρ (34)
ρ
q=1
e−λ1
E(I) = s−1
where (a)n = a(a + 1), . . . , (a + n − 1) with (a)0 defined to ln(2)Γ(t − s + 1)λs−1
1 m=1 Γ(t − m)Γ(s − m)
be 1. 
s
An equivalent expression for the variance of the MI for the × det (Ψi.i.d. (k)) (37)
i.i.d. Rayleigh case was also obtained by Smith and Shafi, k=1
which is given as [12, eq. (5)]
and the second moment of the MI for the i.i.d. Rician case can
∞ be shown to be given by
1
Var(I) = ln2 (1 + ρy)
ln2 (2) e−λ1
0 E(I 2 ) = s−1
ln (2)Γ(t − s +
2
1)λs−1
1 m=1 Γ(t − m)Γ(s − m)

s
(i − 1)!  2
× y t−s e−y Li−1 (y) dy
(t−s) 
s 
s

i=1
(i − 1 + t − s)! × det (Ψi.i.d. (k, l)) (38)
k=1 l=1
1 
s s
(i − 1)!(j − 1)!
− where the first columns Ψi.i.d. (k) and Ψi.i.d. (k, l) are the same
ln (2) i=1 j=1 (i − 1 + t − s)!(j − 1 + t − s)!
2
as those of Ψ(k) and Ψ(k, l) in the non-i.i.d. Rician case,
∞ 2 respectively. The entries in the second, . . ., sth columns of
t−s −y (t−s) (t−s) Ψi.i.d. (k) and Ψi.i.d. (k, l) are the same as those of Ψc (k) and
× y e Li−1 (y)Lj−1 (y) ln(1+ρy)dy .
Ψc (k, l) in the i.i.d. Rayleigh case, respectively.
0

(35) V. N UMERICAL E XAMPLES

This can be evaluated in terms of Meijer’s G-function and In Fig. 1, we validate with Monte Carlo simulations the
the complementary incomplete gamma function. Specifically, mean MI for the general case when the fading coefficients
118 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 5, NO. 1, JANUARY 2006

Fig. 1. Mean MI of MIMO Rician channels with independent but not identically distributed fading coefficients when σ 2 = σn
2 = 1.

Fig. 2. Mean MI of MIMO channels versus the scaled transmitting power (Ωσ 2 )/σn 2 in decibel with different numbers of transmitter/receiver antennas T = R
for (a) i.i.d. Rayleigh fading with σ 2 = σn
2 = 1 and (b) i.i.d. Rician fading with η = 2 and σ 2 = σ 2 = 1.
n

are independent but not identically distributed. In Fig. 1,
the entries of mean matrix M are complex (x, y), where
x and y are i.i.d. samples from uniform (0, 1). It can be
seen that the analytical results match very well with simula-
tions. Fig. 2 plots the mean MI of MIMO channels versus
the scaled transmitting SNR Ωσ 2 /σn2 in decibel with T =
R = 3 and σ 2 = σn2 = 1. It quantifies the capacity gain by
putting more antenna elements. Fig. 3 plots the mean MI of
MIMO channels versus the transmitting SNR Ω/σn2 in deci-
bel with T = R = 3 when σn2 = 1. We fix η 2 + σ 2 = 1 to
investigate the effect of Rician fading. In this formulation,
the existence of a line of sight path, or the Rician fading,
can be viewed as a fading condition in between the Rayleigh
fading (η = 0 and σ 2 = 1) and the deterministic channel
KANG AND ALOUINI: CAPACITY OF MIMO RICIAN CHANNELS 119

Fig. 3. 2 in decibel with T = R = 3 when σ 2 = 1 and η 2 + σ 2 = 1.

Mean MI of MIMO channels versus the transmitting SNR Ω/σn n

Fig. 4. Iccdf of MIMO channels versus the rate threshold Ith with different configurations of transmitter/receiver antennas T = R for i.i.d. Rician fading
when η = 2, σ 2 = σn
2 = 1, and Ω = 12 dB.

(η = 1 and σ 2 = 0). It can be seen that under this formulation
a stronger line of sight path decreases the channel capacity, i.e.,
MIMO systems benefit from a richly scattering environment.
In Fig. 4, the CCDF of the MI Iccdf of MIMO channels
versus the rate threshold Ith with different configurations of
transmitter/receiver antennas T = R for i.i.d. Rician fading
when η = 2, σ 2 = σn2 = 1, and Ω = 12 dB. It can be seen
that the Gaussian approximation observed in [12] and [13]
and analytically justified in [14] works very well for MIMO
Rician channels even when the number of antenna elements
is small.
VI. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, we presented some exact results on the capacity
of MIMO Rician channels. We focused on the scenario in
which channel realization is known at the receiver but not at
the transmitter and as such the scheme of transmitting multiple
120 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 5, NO. 1, JANUARY 2006

independent Gaussian data streams with equal-power allocation Theorem 1: For when H is a complex Gaussian matrix
is used. We followed the formulation in literature that treats this whose entries {H}i,j are independent with mean mi,j and vari-
MI as a RV and studied its statistics. In particular, we derived ance σ 2 , the joint pdf of the s nonzero eigenvalues 0 < φ1 <
the MGF, moments, and a Gaussian-approximated CCDF of φ2 <, . . . , < φs of HH H , fφ1 ,...,φm (φ1 , . . . , φs ), is given by
this MI for independent but not necessarily identically distrib- [27]
uted MIMO Rician fading channels. The results for i.i.d. Rician
and i.i.d. Rayleigh were also obtained as special cases. Particu- fφ1 ,...,φs (φ1 , . . . , φs ) = c1 0 F1 (t; Λ, Φ)
larly, the mean MI obtained for the equal-power allocation gives
the lower bound to the ergodic capacity. The CDF of the MI 
s 
s
×e−tr(Φ) φt−s
k (φi − φj )2 (42)
can serve as an upper bound to the outage probability under the k=1 i<j
capacity versus outage (outage capacity) formulation when the
channel is nonergodic. Numerical results confirmed that for a where 0 F1 (·; ·, ·) is the Bessel type of hypergeometric function
fixed channel gain, a strong line-of-sight component decreases with two matrix arguments defined as that in [27, eq. (13)], and
the channel capacity due to the lack of scattering.
e−tr (Λ)
c1 = s (43)
k=1 Γ(t − k + 1)Γ(s − k + 1)
A PPENDIX A
U SEFUL I NTEGRATION I DENTITIES
Certain integrals involved in the expressions presented in the where Λ = diag(λ1 , . . . , λs ), where 0 < λ1 <, . . . , < λs are
paper can be evaluated in terms of special functions. s nonzero distinct eigenvalues of M H Σ−1 M and Φ =
diag(φ1 , . . . , φs ).
1) In the MGF of the MI formulas, one can use
[21, eq. (3.383.5)] Recall that the MGF of I in (9) is given by
 
s
∞  p
τ
E(eτ I ) = (1 + ρφk ) ln(2)
(1 + ax)−ν xq−1 e−px dx = a−q Γ(q)U q, q + 1 − ν,
a 0<φ1 <...<φs <∞ k=1
0
(39) ×fφ1 ,...,φs (φ1 , . . . , φs )dφ1 . . . dφs . (44)

where Re q > 0, Re p > 0, Re a > 0, and ν is a


0 F1 (n; Λ, Φ) in (42) can be rewritten as [28]
complex number. In (39), Γ(·) is the gamma function
[21, eq. (8.310.1)] and U (·, ·, ·) is the confluent hyper-
 det (0 F1 (t − s + 1; λj φi ))
geometric function of the second kind [21, eq. (9.210.2)]. 0 F1 (t; Λ, Φ) = s
2) In the mean MI formulas, one can use [26, eq. (78)] l<k (λl − λk )(φl − φk )

  
s
Γ(k)
∞ 
n × . (45)
Γ −n + k, ac Γ(t − k + 1)Γ(t − s + 1)
ln(1 + ay)y n−1 e−cy dy = Γ(n)e a
c
k=1
ck an−k
k=1
0 s
(40) Substituting (45) into (42) and writing l<k (φl − φk ) = |W |,
where
where Γ(·, ·) is the complementary incomplete gamma
function [21, eq. (8.350.2)].
s−1

φ1 φs−2 ··· 1

3) In the second moment of the MI formulas, one can use

s−1 1

φ2 φs−2 ··· 1

|W | =

. ..

2
.. .. (46)
∞ c n−1

.. . .

2 n−1 −cy 2e a  n−1

s−1
.

ln (1 + ay)y e dy = n φs φs−2
s ··· 1
a m=0 m
0
c


m−(n−1),m−(n−1),m−(n−1) and sl<k (λl − λk ) = |V | in the same fashion, we can rewrite
×(−1)m G43 04
0,m−n,m−n,m−n (41)
a (42) as
a ,...,a
where Gm n 1 p
p q (x|b1 ,...,bq ) is Meijer’s G-function defined c
in [21, eq. (9.301)]. fφ1 ,...,φs (φ1 , . . . , φs ) = det (0 F1 (t − s + 1; φi λj ))
|V |

s
−φk
A PPENDIX B × det(W ) φt−s
k e (47)
D ERIVATION OF THE MGF OF THE MI FOR k=1
MIMO R ICIAN C HANNELS
where
In this appendix, we briefly outline the derivation of the MGF
of the MI for MIMO Rician channels for the non-i.i.d. case. e−tr (Λ)
c = . (48)
First, we cite the following theorem due to James. (Γ(t − s + 1))s
KANG AND ALOUINI: CAPACITY OF MIMO RICIAN CHANNELS 121

Now the column/row of Ψ(τ ) and V containing λj with respect

to λj and then setting λj = 0 for j = 1, . . . , s − 1. After such
det (0 F1 (t − s + 1; φi λj )) det(W ) manipulations, |V | becomes
 s 

= det s−j
0 F1 (t − s + 1; φi ; λj )φk . (49) s(s−1) 
s−1

k=1
det(V ) = (−1) 2 λs−1
s Γ(s − i). (55)
i=1
By the multilinear property of the determinant function, the
above determinant can be written as a sum of s2 determinants After the manipulations mentioned above, {Ψ(τ )}i,j , j =
(e.g., if a, b, c, and d are 2 − d column vectors, det(a + 1, . . . , s − 1, becomes
b, c + d) = det(a, c) + det(a, d)+det(b, c) + det(b, d)). Not-
ing that the determinant is zero whenever σi = σj , i = j dj−1
lim {Ψ(τ )}i,j
because these two columns will be proportional to each other, λj →0 dλj−1
j
survival determinants are those with indices from the permu-
∞
tation of {1, . . . , s}. Further expanding each survival determi- 1 τ
= lim y t−i+j−1 (1 + ρy) ln(2)
nant, we have Γ(t − s + j) λj →0
0

det (0 F1 (t − s + 1; φi λj )) det(W ) ×e−y

0 F1 (t − s + j; yλj )dy. (56)
 
= sign(i1 , i2 , · · · , is )
We now need to show that the order of the limit and the
(σ1 ,σ2 ,···,σs ) (i1 ,i2 ,···,is )
integration in (56) is interchangeable. Define a sequence of
× φs−1
σ1 0 F1 (t − s + 1; φσ1 λi1 )
functions


σ2 0 F1 (t − s + 1; φσ2 λi2 )
× φs−2 1
hn (y) = 0 F1 t − s + j; y g(y), n = 1, 2, . . . (57)
n
×, . . . , ×0 F1 (t − s + 1; φσs λis ) (50)
where
where sign(i1 , i2 , . . . , is ) is 1 if the permutation (i1 , i2 , . . . , is )
is even and −1 if the permutation (i1 , i2 , . . . , is ) is odd. Inter- τ
g(y) = (1 + ρy) ln(2) y t−i+j−1 e−y . (58)
changing the order of the summations in (50), then substitut-
ing (50) into (47), and integrating over D = {0 < φ1 < φ2 < It is obvious that
, . . . , < φs < ∞} as per (44) yield the MGF of I, MI (τ ) =
E(eτ I ), as lim hn (y) = g(y), for all y > 0 (59)
n→∞
∞ 
 
MI (τ ) = E(eτ I ) =
c
det  fi (λj , y)dy  (51) |hn (y)| is bounded by
|V |
0
g(y)0 F1 (t − s + j; y)
where
and
τ
−y
fi (λj , y) = y t−i
(1 + ρy) ln(2) e 0 F1 (t − s + 1; yλj ) (52) ∞
which completes the proof. g(y)0 F1 (t − s + j; y)dy < ∞, for Re (τ > 0). (60)
0

A PPENDIX C Therefore, by Lebesgue’s Dominated Convergence Theorem,

D ERIVATION OF THE MGF OF THE MI FOR THE we can interchange the order of the limit and the integration
IID R ICIAN C ASE in (56). After taking the limit and some algebra, we obtain (24).
Since M H Σ−1 M now has only one nonzero eigenvalue, we
For the i.i.d. case, i.e., {H}i,j ∼ CN (η, σ 2 ), it is easy to see
denote it by λ1 and this completes the proof.
that M H Σ−1 M has only one nonzero eigenvalue

st|η|2
λs = . (53) A PPENDIX D
σ2
D ERIVATION OF THE MGF OF THE MI FOR THE
Therefore, the MGF of the MI is simply IID R AYLEIGH C ASE
When E(H) = 0, taking the (s − 1)th derivative with re-
lim MI (τ ) (54)
λs−1 ,...,λ1 →0 spect to λ1 in both numerator (the term |Ψi.i.d. (τ )|) and de-
nominator (the term λs−1
1 ) and then setting λ1 = 0 give the
where MI (τ ) is given by (10). Since this is a 0/0 type of limit, MGF of the MI with equal-power allocation for the i.i.d. MIMO
we apply l Hôpital rule by taking the (j − 1)th derivative of Rayleigh fading channels in (27).
122 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 5, NO. 1, JANUARY 2006
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Ming Kang received the Ph.D. degree in electri-
cal engineering from the University of Minnesotta,
Minneapolis, in 2005.
He is now with Qualcomm Inc., San Diego, CA.
His research interest lies in wireless communication
systems.
Mohamed-Slim Alouini (S’94–M’98–SM’03) was
born in Tunis, Tunisia. He received the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering from the California Institute
of Technology, Pasadena, in 1998.
He was an Associate Professor in the Depart-
ment of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. In September
2005, he joined Texas A&M University-Qatar, Doha,
Qatar, where his research interests lie in the area
of performance analysis of wireless communication
systems.