Lecture 2

Capacity of Fading Gaussian Channels

• Slow fading channels: Ch. 5.4.1–4

• Fast fading channels: Ch. 5.4.5–6

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 1/16

The Flat Fading Gaussian Channel

CSIT CSIR
hm
wm
encoder decoder
ω xm ym ω̂
α β

• Discrete-time, complex baseband: xm ∈ X = C, ym ∈ Y = C,

channel gain hm ∈ C, noise wm ∈ C
• Complex-valued channel gains {hm },
• channel-state information at the transmitter (CSIT):
hm known at the transmitter
• channel-state information at the receiver (CSIR):
hm known at the receiver
• The noise {wm } is i.i.d. complex Gaussian CN (0, σ 2 )

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 2/16

Slow fading, perfect CSIR, no CSIT
• Slow fading (non-ergodic, quasi-static, block fading):
hm = h, m = 1, . . . , n, with h drawn according to a pdf fh
• Coding:
• Equally likely information symbols ω ∈ IM = {1, . . . , M }
• An (M, n) code with power constraint P
n o
1 Codebook C = xn 1 (1), . . . , x n (M ) , with
1
n
X
n
−1
|xm (i)|2 ≤ P, i ∈ IM
m=1

2 Encoding: ω = i ⇒ xn n
1 = α(i) = x1 (i)
3 Decoding: y1n received, hm = h known ⇒ ω̂ = β(y1n ; h)

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 3/16

• Conditional capacity, conditioned on a value hm = h

 
P
C(h) = log 1 + |h|2 2
σ

• Outage probability,


pout (R) = Pr C(h) < R

• probability that a code of rate R will not work

• Definition of ε-capacity:
• The rate R is ε-achievable if there exists a sequence of (⌈2nR ⌉, n)
codes such that
lim Pe(n) ≤ ε
n→∞
(n)
where Pe = Pr(ω̂ 6= ω)
• The ε-capacity Cε is the supremum of the ε-achievable rates

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 4/16

 • Let γ = |h|2 , Fγ (x) = Pr(γ ≤ x)
• ε-capacity (’ε-outage capacity’) of the slow fading channel,

P

Cε = log 1 + Fγ−1 (ε)
σ2

• Since, when trying a ’Gaussian codebook’ of rate R,

(
(n)
C(h) > R ⇒ Pe → 0
(n) ⇒ Pe(n) → pout (R)
C(h) < R ⇒ Pe → 1

• Fγ such that Fγ (x) > 0 for any x > 0 ⇒

C = lim+ Cε = 0
ε→0

• The ’ordinary’ (Shannon) capacity C is zero!

• true e.g. for exponential γ (Rayleigh fading)

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 5/16

Parallel slow fading channels, perfect CSIR, no CSIT

• General block fading model:
Assume n = LTc and hm = gℓ , m = t + (ℓ − 1)Tc , ℓ = 1, . . . , L,
t = 1, . . . Tc and {gℓ } i.i.d,
• the channel is constant for Tc channel uses = the “coherence
interval,” i.i.d realizations in different intervals
• Coding:
• Block length n = LTc — coding over L coherence intervals,
n o
• Codebook: C = xn 1 (1), . . . , x n
1 (M ) , power constraint P
• Encoding: ω = i ⇒ xn n
1 = α(i) = x1 (i)
• Decoding: y1n received, hn n n
1 known ⇒ ω̂ = β(y1 ; h1 )

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 6/16

 • ε-capacity, the general block fading model:
• R = n−1 log M is ε-achievable if there exists a sequence of
(⌈2nR ⌉, n) codes such that

lim Pe(n) ≤ ε

when Tc → ∞ for a fixed and finite L, with n = LTc

• Cε is the supremum of the ε-achievable rates

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 7/16

• With
L „ «
1X 2 P
C(g1L ) = log 1 + |gℓ | 2
L σ
ℓ=1

and
pout (R) = Pr C(g1L ) < R
` ´

it can be shown that

Cε = p−1
out (ε)

• pout decays as (P/σ 2 )−L ⇒ L-fold diversity!

• the transmitter does not need to know {gℓ }
• coding needs to span L different coherence intervals
⇒ long delays

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 8/16

Fast fading, perfect CSIR, no CSIT
• Fast fading (ergodic fading):
Assume {hm } is an i.i.d process (or more generally, stationary and
ergodic),
• each time-instant m gives a new value for hm
• Coding:
n o
• Codebook: C = xn
1 (1), . . . , x n
1 (M ) , power constraint P
• Encoding: ω = i ⇒ xn n
1 = α(i) = x1 (i)
• Decoding: y1n received, hn n n
1 known ⇒ ω̂ = β(y1 ; h1 )

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 9/16

• Capacity (ergodic capacity),

  
P
C = E log 1 + |hm |2 2
σ

• {hm } stationary ⇒ C does not depend on m

• no CSIT required
• This is the same value as obtained for Cε , any ε ∈ (0, 1), in the
block fading channel model when letting L → ∞,
• coding accross (infinitely) many coherence intervals necessary
⇒ long delays

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 10/16

Fast fading, perfect CSIR, perfect CSIT
• {hm } known causally at the transmitter
• Coding:
• Encoding: ω = i and hm m
1 known ⇒ xm = α(i; h1 ), with power
constraint
n
X 2
n −1
E|xm (i; hm
1 )| ≤ P, i ∈ IM
m=1

• Decoding: y1n received, hn n n

1 known ⇒ ω̂ = β(y1 ; h1 )

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 11/16

• Capacity (ergodic capacity),

  
2 P (hm )
C = E log 1 + |hm |
σ2

where +
σ2

1
P (x) = −
λ |x|2
and where λ is chosen such that

E[P (hm )] = P

• Waterfilling over time. . .

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 12/16

 • Separate power control is optimal

ω zm xm

‘Gaussian codebook’ πm
π(·) hm

• Fixed (rate and power) ’Gaussian codebook’ {z1n (i)}, with

n
1 X
|zm |2 ≤ 1
n m=1
√
• Based on the CSIT hm , multiply with πm = Pm where
–+
σ2
»
1
Pm = −
λ |hm |2

and transmit xm = πm zm — achieves capacity

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 13/16

• Optimal power control,

• Notable gains only at low SNR’s. . .

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 14/16

 • Channel inversion:
• Assume real-valued transmission: ym = hm (πm zm ) + wm
• Use
λ
πm =
hm
2
with λ chosen such that E[πm ] = P ⇒ ym = λzm + wm ⇒

1 ` λ2 ´
C = log 1 + 2
2 σ

• Simple, but suboptimal in general

• Can give huge power peaks (when hm ≈ 0)
• For e.g. hm Rayleigh distributed,

E[h−2
m ] = ∞ ⇒ inversion does not work

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 15/16

• Capacities, fast fading; plot from

• Goldsmith and Varaiya, “Capacity of fading channels with channel
side information,” IEEE Trans. on Inform. Theory, Nov. 1997

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 16/16