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MIMO – Diversity and Spatial

Multiplexing
August 6, 2014 by Mathuranathan

(24 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)

The wireless communication environment is very hostile. The signal
transmitted over a wireless communication link is susceptible to fading
(severe uctuations in signal level), co-channel interference, dispersion
e ects in time and frequency, path loss e ect, etc. On top of these woes, the
limited availability of bandwidth posses a signi cant challenge to a designer
in designing a system that provides higher spectral e ciency and higher
quality of link availability at low cost.

Previous article in this series : Introduction to Multiple Antenna Systems

Multiple antenna systems are the current trend in many of the wireless
technologies that is essential for their performance (you will even see it in
your future hard disk drives as Two Dimensional Magnetic Recording (TDMR)
technology). Multiple Input Multiple Output systems (MIMO) improve the
spectral e ciency and o ers high quality links when compared to
 traditional Single Input Single Output (SISO) systems. Many theoretical
studies [1-2] and communication system design experimentations [3-5] on
MIMO systems demonstrated a great improvement in performance of such
systems.

Techniques for improving performance

Spatial Multiplexing techniques [6], example – BLAST[7] yields increased
data rates in wireless communication links. Fading can be mitigated by
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employing receiver and transmit diversity (Alamouti Scheme [8] , Tarokh

et. al[9]) , there by improving the reliability of the transmission link.
Improved coverage can be e ected by employing coherent combining
techniques – which gives array gain and increases the signal to noise ratio
of the system. The goals of a wireless communication system are
con icting and a clear balance of the goals is needed for maximizing the
performance of the system.

The following text concentrates on two of the above mentioned techniques

– diversity and spatial multiplexing.

MIMO classi cation with respect to antenna

con guration
In MIMO jargon, communication systems are broadly categorized into
four categories with respect to number of antennas in the transmitter and
the receiver, as listed below.

● SISO – Single Input Single Output system – 1 Tx antenna , 1 Rx antenna

● SIMO – Single Input Multiple Output system – 1 Tx antenna, NR Rx
antennas (NR > 1)
● MISO – Multiple Input Single Output system – NT Tx antennas, 1 Rx
antenna (NT > 1 )
● MIMO – Multiple Input Multiple Output system – NT Tx antennas, NR
Rx antennas (NT , NR > 1 )

Diversity and Spatial-Multiplexing

Apart from the antenna con gurations, there are two avors of MIMO with
respect to how data is transmitted across the given channel. Existence of
multiple antennas in a system, means existence of di erent propagation
paths. Aiming at improving the reliability of the system, we may choose to
send same data across the di erent propagation (spatial) paths. This is
called spatial diversity or simply diversity. Aiming at improving the data rate
of the system, we may choose to place di erent portions of the data on
di erent propagation paths (spatial-multiplexing). These two systems are
listed below.

● MIMO – implemented using diversity techniques – provides diversity gain –

Aimed at improving the reliability
● MIMO – implemented using spatial-multiplexing techniques – provides

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degrees of freedom or multiplexing gain – Aimed at improving the data rate of

the system

Diversity:
As indicated, two fundamental resources available for a MIMO system are
diversity and degrees of freedom. Let’s see what these terms mean

In diversity techniques, same information is sent across independent

fading channels to combat fading. When multiple copies of the same data
are sent across independently fading channels, the amount of fade su ered
by each copy of the data will be di erent. This guarantees that at-least one
of the copy will su er less fading compared to rest of the copies. Thus, the
chance of properly receiving the transmitted data increases. In e ect, this
improves the reliability of the entire system. This also reduces the co-
channel interference signi cantly. This technique is referred as inducing a
“spatial diversity” in the communication system.

Consider a SISO system where a data stream [1, 0, 1, 1, 1] is transmitted

through a channel with deep fades. Due to the variations in the channel
quality, the data stream may get lost or severely corrupted that the receiver
cannot recover.The solution to combat the rapid channel variations is to
add independent fading channel by increasing the number of transmitter
antennas or receiver antennas or the both.

The SISO antenna con guration con guration will not provide any
diversity as there is no parallel link. Thus the diversity is indicated as (0).

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Instead of transmitting with single antenna and receiving with single

antenna (as in SISO), let’s increase the number of receiving antennas by one
more count. In this Single Input Multiple Output (SIMO) antenna system,
two copies of the same data are put on two di erent channels having
independent fading characteristics. Even if one of the link fails to deliver
the data, the chances of proper delivery of the data across the other link is
very high. Thus, additional fading channels increase the reliability of the
overall transmission – this improvement in reliability translates into
performance improvement – measured as diversity gain. For a system with
NT transmitter antennas and NR receiver antennas, the maximum number

of diversity paths is NT × NR . In the following con guration, the total

number of diversity path created is 1 × 2 = 2 .

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In this way, more diversity paths can be created by adding multiple

antennas at transmitter or receiver or both. The following gure illustrates
a 2 × 2 MIMO system with number of diversity paths equal to 2 × 2 = 4.

Spatial Multiplexing:

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In spatial multiplexing, each spatial channel carries independent

information, there by increasing the data rate of the system. This can be
compared to Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)
technique, where, di erent frequency subchannels carry di erent parts of
the modulated data. But in spatial multiplexing, if the scattering by the
environment is rich enough, several independent subchannels are created
in the same allocated bandwidth. Thus the multiplexing gain comes at no
additional cost on bandwidth or power. The multiplexing gain is also
referred as degrees of freedom with reference to signal space
constellation [2]. The number of degrees of freedom in a multiple antenna
con guration is equal to min(NT , NR ), where NT is the number of
transmit antennas and NR is the number of receive antennas. The degrees
of freedom in a MIMO con guration governs the overall capacity of the
system.

Following gure illustrates the di erence between diversity and spatial

multiplexing. In the transmit diversity technique shown below, same
information is sent across di erent independent spatial channels by placing
them on three di erent transmit antennas. Here, the diversity gain is
3 (assuming 3 × 1 MISO con guration) and multiplexing gain is 0.

In the spatial multiplexing technique, each bit of the data stream

(independent information) is multiplexed on three di erent spatial
channels thereby increasing the data rate. Here, the diversity gain is 0 and
the multiplexing gain is 3 (assuming 3 × 3 MIMO con guration).

Exploiting diversity and degree of freedom:

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As seen above, in a MIMO system with rich scattering environment

(independent uncorrelated spatial paths), space time codes are designed to
exploit following two resources.

Degrees of F reedom = min(N T , N R )

Diversity = NT × NR

References
[1] I. E. Telatar, “Capacity of multi-antenna gaussian channels,” European
Transactions on Telecommunication, vol. 10, pp. 585–595, Nov./Dec. 1999.
[2] G. J. Foschini, “Layered space-time architecture for wireless
communication in a fading environment when using multi-element
antennas,” Bell Labs Tech. J., vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 41–59, 1996.
[3] V. Tarokh, H. Jafarkhani, and A. R. Calderbank, “Space-time block code
from orthogonal designs,” IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. 45, pp. 1456–
1467, July 1999.
[4] G. Foschini, G. Golden, R. Valenzuela, and P. Wolniansky, “Simpli ed
processing for high spectal e ciency wireless communication employing
multi-element arrays,” IEEE J. Select. Areas Commun., vol. 17, pp. 1841–
1852, Nov. 1999.
[5] R. Heath, Jr. and A. Paulraj, “Switching between multiplexing and
diversity based on constellation distance,” in Proc. Allerton Conf.
Communication, Control and Computing, Oct. 2000.
[6] A. Paulraj and T. Kailath, Increasing capacity in wireless broadcast
Systems using distributed  transmission/directional reception (DTDR), US
Patent No. 5,345,599, Issued 1993
[7] Gerard. J. Foschini, Layered Space-Time Architecture for Wireless
Communication in a Fading Environment When Using Multi-Element
Antennas”.Bell Laboratories Technical Journal: 41–59,(October 1996)
[8] S.M. Alamouti (October 1998). “A simple transmit diversity technique
for wireless communications”. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in
Communications 16 (8): 1451–1458
[9] V. Tarokh, N. Seshadri, A. Calderbank, ‘Space-Time Codes for High Data
Rate Wireless Communication: Performance Criterion and Code
Construction,’ IEEE Trans. on. Information Theory, Vol. 44, No.2, pp.744-
765, March 1998

(24 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)

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Articles in this series

[1] Introduction to Multiple Antenna Systems

[2] MIMO - Diversity and Spatial Multiplexing

[3] Characterizing a MIMO channel - Channel State Information (CSI)

and Condition number

[4] Capacity of a SISO system over a fading channel

[5]Ergodic Capacity of a SISO system over a Rayleigh Fading channel -

Simulation in Matlab

[6]Capacity of a MIMO system over Fading Channels

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9 thoughts on “MIMO – Diversity and Spatial Multiplexing”

Waseem Raza
August 12, 2017 at 1:37 pm | Reply

Hy
Greetings from Pakistan,

I am unable to understand that why the term degree of freedom and

spatial multiplexing are used interchangeably. Please explain a bit.

Thanks

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Mathuranathan
August 15, 2017 at 3:46 pm | Reply

Degree of freedom is the number of independent channels that

can be exploited by the transmitter for sending the data. In spatial
multiplexing these independent channels carry di erent bits
(multiplexing) of the information stream (see the image above).

Waseem Raza
August 15, 2017 at 7:17 pm | Reply

Thank you very much for you response.

Mukul
September 24, 2015 at 1:59 pm | Reply

I am scratching my head and internet together to nd out the

reason to call TM6 as Spatial Multiplexing though there is only one
Layer (Rank 1) and no spatial multiplexing gain can be achieved in
LTE from that.
Am I missing anything here about de nition of Spatial Multiplexing.

sonsenan
February 20, 2015 at 5:42 am | Reply

pleas help about massive mimo uplink

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Vinuthna Vinjamuri
November 6, 2014 at 1:41 am | Reply

In the example you gave above, why are you comparing spatial
multiplexing with 3 Rx antennas and spatial diversity with 1
antenna. Is it not that we require same N_t and N_r for fair
comparison?
Does spatial mutliplexing require N_t = N_r?

As you de ne, degrees of freedom, multiplexing gain of the above

transmit diversity scheme should be 1 (min(3,1)), but, why did you
say it is zero?

Mathuranathan
November 6, 2014 at 4:48 pm | Reply

Those two statements are separate. The statements are meant for
neither fair comparison nor for deducing any meaningful gain.
The statements are just to illustrate the di erence between the two
techniques.

Again, it is a comparative statement. I say zero, since we are not

gaining anything with transmit diversity in terms of multiplexing
gain. It only improves the reliability.

Vinuthna Vinjamuri
November 6, 2014 at 11:56 pm | Reply

Thank you. What about spatial multiplexing? will it require N_t =

N_r?

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Mathuranathan
November 10, 2014 at 3:01 pm | Reply

There is no such requirement.

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