Spatial multiplexing in UWB MIMO
communications
V.P. Tran and A. Sibille
A spatial multiplexing coherent scheme for pulse based ultra-
wideband (UWB) multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radio is
discussed and experimentally investigated. In favourable channel
conditions, it is shown that a multiplexing rate equal to the number
of transmitters may be obtained, at small or no signal-to-noise ratio
penalty.
Introduction: Certain applications of UWB radio technology such as
in-home high definition video transmission requires rates up to
1.6 Gbit=s, which is very demanding especially under a severe emitted
isotropic radiated power limitation such as imposed by the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) in the USA (41.3 dBm=MHz).
Spatial multiplexing (SM) is one solution in order to increase
throughput. With respect to narrowband, SM in UWB is made
easier because of the superior spatial decorrelation capability and
the absence of fading, reducing the processing load at the receiver.
Our goal in the work reported in this Letter has been to investigate SM
in the case of a pulse based physical layer.
Ú was used for averaging purposes. In addition, a single input-single
h11 R W1,1
in1 h11
h12 n1 Ú
R W1,2
h21 h12
in2
Ú
processor
h22
R
h21 W2,1
n2
Ú
R W2,2
h22
Fig. 1 2  2 UWB spatial multiplexing architecture
MIMO UWB architectural principle: A model of the considered
system architecture is depicted in Fig. 1 for the 2  2 MIMO case.
The number of independent input binary streams, i.e. the multiplexing
rate, is equal to the number of transmitting antennas. For each
receiving antenna the signals are passed through a bank of rake
combiners, and the outputs are correlated with a reference template
clocked at the symbol frequency. Each selective rake stage is char-
acterised by an impulse response (IR) hRij (t), which is chosen to be
associated with the channel IR hij(t), and it performs a partial
equalisation of this channel. A similar scheme was first investigated
in [1], although with an all-rake combiner. Here, through additional
antenna combining with weights Wij, we further exploit receiver
diversity to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In the present
work we restrict ourselves to a 2  2 MIMO configuration with equal
gain antenna combining at the receiver (Wij ¼ 1). Assuming perfect
synchronisation, the output amplitude for channel hij and rake hRlm is
written as:
ð  optimal performance for 5.9 GHz BW and much worse for 400 MHz
 
sijlm ¼ Maxt  ½hij *hRlm *pðtÞref ðt  tÞdt 
where p(t) is the transmitted pulse, ref(t) is the correlator template
waveform, and * denotes the convolution. Thus the input–output
relation is written as y ¼ M –1=2Hx þ n, x being the input data
signal, n a Gaussian noise vector of variance N0=2 per component,
and M ¼ 2 with the factor M –1=2 ensuring a transmitted energy
independent of M. The matrix H contains channel and rake stage
IR, and receiver correlator. In the following we assume single pulse
transmission and binary amplitude modulation. Other modulations
such as DS-CDMA or PPM differing only by the template are
usable as well, but they would not be relevant for very high data
rates. The asymmetrical scheme discussed here assumes a very good
decoupling of received signals whenever (l, m) 6¼ (i, j), through the
transmission decorrelating role of the rake stages. This implies the
double condition on inter-channel interference sijlm < sijij and slmij < sijij.
The performance thus relies on the high spatial decorrelation capabil-
ity of UWB signals, pointed out and analysed by several authors [1–4].
ELECTRONICS LETTERS 3rd August 2006 Vol. 42 No. 16
For a quantitative analysis we thus define the inter-channel interference
coefficient s as:
s ¼ Meani;j;m ðsijim =simim Þ with m 6¼ j ð2Þ
Ð r is definedpby
The transmit side IR correlation coefficient Ð the same
Ðformula, with sijlm replaced by rijlm ¼ hij (t)hlm(t) dt= ( h2ij (t) dt 
h2lm(t) dt).
Measurements and simulations: These ideas were tested by carrying
out a 2  2 MIMO channel measurement campaign over a few line
of sight (LOS) and non-line of sight (NLOS) locations in the
laboratory. The channel IR hij(t), which incorporated antenna IR
(UWB bicones), were obtained as the Fourier transforms of properly
windowed frequency domain transfer functions. The latter were
measured at night with a vector network analyser (Agilent
HP8510C) in the band 2–10 GHz with 10 MHz steps. Two antenna
separations d ¼ 4 cm and 20 cm were considered identical on both
arrays. While the transmitting array was kept fixed, the receiving one
was horizontally scanned over 11  11 ¼ 121 positions, with 4 cm
increment in each direction. The resulting small-scale statistical set
output (SISO) reference configuration was measured for the same
antenna positions. The SM performance (multiplexing rate ¼ 2) was
simulated for a binary antipodal modulation (BAM), and a few
out1
simple detection schemes: (i) direct detection (DD), where the
estimated symbol writes p d ¼ sign(y); (ii) zero forcing detection
out2 (ZF), where d̂ ¼ sign( (M)H1y); (iii) maximum likelihood (ML)
detection, with d̂ ¼ sign(arg mind2{1,þ1}Mky  M1=2Hdk). Unless
specified, the simulations analysed below assume ideal channel
estimation and make use of a pulse respecting the FCC mask and
occupying a 3 dB bandwidth from 4.22 to 7.03 GHz. The horizontal
axis is the SISO received Eb=N0 for p BAM, thus the SISO bit error
rate (BER) curve is given by erfc( (Eb=N0))=2 and serves as a
reference. This allows evaluation of the SNR loss incurred by SM,
irrespective of path-loss effects. In all cases 10 fingers per rake stage
have been used.
Results and discussion: Representative performance results are
shown in Figs. 2–4. While DD never succeeds in providing acceptable
performance, ZF often approaches ML and even SISO performance.
Comparing the various locations and scenarios, it appears clearly that
the BER is most often directly related with s as defined in (2). Table 1
shows the values of s and r for a selection of various locations=
scenarios, and the corresponding value of Eb=N0 at 105 BER. It also
appears that s is generally very close to r, which can thus be used to
evaluate SM performance directly from channel measurements. The
favourable effect of the BW can also be seen in Fig. 4, with close to
BW. This demonstrates the superior performance of UWB over
ð1Þ narrowband for SM.
0
–1
log (BER)
–2
–3
–4
–5
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
Eb /N0, dB Eb /N0, dB
a b
Fig. 2 Performance for NLOS1 (3 GHz BW)
a NLOS1 d ¼ 20 cm
b NLOS1 d ¼ 4 cm
- - - - - DD
      ZF
 ML
—— SISO
 0
scheme is promising. It could apply to short distance LOS scenarios
–1 where throughput is the prime requirement, rather than to time variant
low SNR situations where space-time codes are more appropriate in

log (BER)
–2
order to increase the link robustness [6, 7]. Additional work showed
–3 that intersymbol interference (ISI) at high rates was partly mitigated
–4 by the rake combiner, and that the present MIMO approach relaxed
requirements on the equaliser by providing four times higher through-
–5
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20 put at the same symbol frequency [8]. This leads in, for example,
Eb/N0, dB Eb/N0, dB
a b LOS2 (delay spread 5.2 ns) and NLOS2 (delay spread 6.9 ns) loca-
tions to 500 and 440 Mbit=s, respectively, at an ISI limited error floor
Fig. 3 Performance for LOS2=NLOS2 (3 GHz BW) of BER  103 (10 rake fingers, d ¼ 20 cm, 2.8 GHz BW). These
a NLOS2 d ¼ 4 cm figures are very close to twice the SISO throughputs, as expected for
b LOS2 d ¼ 4 cm an SM scheme. In the future the requirements on channel estimation
- - - - - DD
     ZF
and synchronisation, which are among the key issues in coherent
 ML schemes and assume further importance in MIMO configurations, will
—— SISO have to be addressed.
0

–1 Acknowledgment: The authors thank S. Bories for providing the

specially designed UWB bicones used in this work.
log (BER)

–2

–3
# The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2006
–4 20 May 2006
–5 Electronics Letters online no: 20061564
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
Eb /N0, dB Eb /N0, dB doi: 10.1049/el:20061564
a b
V.P. Tran and A. Sibille (ENSTA=UEI, 32 Bd Victor, 75739 Paris cedex
Fig. 4 SM performance for NLOS1 location (d ¼ 4 cm) 15, France)
a 5.9 GHz BW E-mail: alain.sibille@ensta.fr
b 400 MHz BW
- - - - - DD
     ZF References
 ML
—— SISO 1 Weisenhorn, M., and Hirt, W.: ‘Performance of binary antipodal signaling
over the indoor UWB MIMO channel’, IEEE Int. Conf. on
Communications, 2003, 4, pp. 2872–2878
Table 1: s, r and Eb=N0 at 105 BER for various locations=
2 Sibille, A.: ‘Spatial diversity’ in ‘UWB communication systems—a
scenarios comprehensive overview’ (EURASIP Book Series on Signal
Eb=N0, dB 10 10.5 10.5 10.5 11 11 12.5 15 17 19 Processing and Communications, Hindawi, May 2005).
3 Prettie, C., et al.: ‘Spatial correlation of UWB signals in a home
s 0.03 0.13 0.17 0.17 0.25 0.25 0.14 0.49 0.62 0.68
environment’. IEEE UWBST Conf., Baltimore, MD, USA, May 2002
r 0.10 0.13 0.17 0.18 0.30 0.33 0.13 0.63 0.72 0.76 4 Tran, V.P., and Sibille, A.: ‘UWB spatial multiplexing by multiple
antennas and RAKE decorrelation’. ISWCS, Siena, Italy, September
2005
5 McCorkle, J.: ‘Ultra wide bandwidth (UWB): gigabit wireless
Conclusion: A simple MIMO SM architecture requiring at the communications for battery operated consumer applications’. 2005
receiver both channel state information and rake=antenna combining Symp. on VLSI Circuits Dig. Tech. Pprs
has been described. It achieves a multiplexing rate equal to the 6 Yang, L., and Giannakis, G.B.: ‘Space-time coding for impulse radio’.
number of transmitting antennas, with an SNR loss depending on IEEE Conf. on Ultra Wideband Systems and Technologies, 2002,
channel conditions and on the antenna separation. Performance results pp. 235–239
7 Rjeily, C.A.: ‘On high data rate space-time codes for ultra-wideband
have been simulated for measured channels from a small selection of systems’. IEEE Int. Conf. on Ultra Wide Band, Zürich, Switzerland,
LOS and NLOS scenarios. Although they depend on the number of September 2005
rake fingers, circuit design considerations from the literature indicate 8 Sibille, A., and Tran, V.P.: ‘Ultrawideband performance of spatial
that the silicon area required by rake stages is not the limiting factor, multiplexing’. 12th European Wireless Conf. (EW 2006), Athens,
unless of a very large number of fingers [5]. Therefore the presented Greece, April 2006

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 3rd August 2006 Vol. 42 No. 16

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