Performance of multiple space-time coded MIMO in spatially correlated channels

In [1], it is shown that multiple space-time coded streams can be transmitted simultaneously by labeling the transmit antennas into different transmission groups. Space-time codes are applied to the antennas within the same groups. A receiver structure using array processing and low-complexity maximum likelihood (ML) detector was proposed. A multi-code Wideband CDMA downlink high speed packet data channel was simulated using the Alamouti code [2]. The results show performance gains over the VBLAST [3] at data rates above 10Mbps for both MMSE and Zero-Forcing optimized array processors. In this work, we further study the performance of the same scheme in the spatially correlated channels. Performance analysis shows that due to the built-in diversity of the space-time codes, the proposed scheme is robust even in the highly spatially corelated environments. Simulation results are provided only for MMSE under channels with different correlations.