2017 IEEE 13th International Colloquium on Signal Processing & its Applications (CSPA 2017), 10 - 12 March 2017, Penang,
Malaysia
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0,022)'0LQ)DGLQJ&KDQQHOVXVLQJ+\EULG
:DWHU)LOOLQJDQG1DVK$OJRULWKP
Ali Farzamnia, Eng Soo Yew, Md. Nazrul Islam
Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
ali-farzamnia@ieee.org, engsooyew@gmail.com, nazrul@ums.edu.my
Abstract— In this competing wireless communication system,
channel capacity is one of the important considerations in
promising reliable communication over wireless medium.
The demand for channel capacity is increasing from time to
time due to the increase of wireless network users. The
combination of Multiple Input Multiple Output and
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MIMO-
OFDM) is a convincing solution to enhance the capacity of
different fading channels. However, the channel capacity is
still limited by the use of power allocation algorithm. The
existing channel capacity is dependent on Water Filling
power allocation algorithm. In this paper, a hybrid
algorithm of Water Filling and Nash algorithm is proposed
and is applied to revise the power allocations to the channels.
The proposed method has considered Rayleigh, Rician and
Nakagami fading channels in the simulations. The results
have shown that the channel capacity is increased
significantly in different fading channels by using the
proposed method compared to the existing water filling
algorithm. In the future, researchers may focus on the
improvement of the channel capacity in terms of power
allocation method.
Index MIMO, OFDM, Water Filling algorithm, channel
capacity, Nash
I. INTRODUCTION
Recently, MIMO systems in wireless communication
have drawn the focus as they have the ability to provide
both channel capacity gain and diversity gain in a
scattering environment. The MIMO wireless
communication systems consist of multiple antennas at
both transmitter and receiver sides. In a precondition of
rich scattering wireless channels, the capacity of MIMO
system would have a linear increase with the minimum
antennas in the transmitter and receiver approximately [1].
This is essential as the spectrum resources are so loaded
and narrowly. This is due to the fact that the demand for
channel capacity is keep on increasing from time to time as
the increasing of wireless network users.
On the other hand, OFDM is well known of high data
rates and spectral efficiency in the wireless
communication. It provides robustness to imperfect
channel conditions. The combination of MIMO and
OFDM methods together can enhance the diversity gain as
well as data rate [2].
However, one factor that need to be considered in a
MIMO-OFDM system is multipath fading. This is because
fading, interference and noise would exist in the paths
where transmitter antennas send parallel signals to receiver
antennas [3]. This leads to the attenuation of transmitted
signals and channel capacity. Accordingly, investigation
978-1-5090-1184-1/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
on the performance of MIMO-OFDM system over
different fading channels becomes crucial, so that to
compare their channel capacity. In a wireless
communication channel, the transmitted signal can travel
from transmitter to receiver over multiple reflective paths.
This gives rise to multipath fading which causes
fluctuations in amplitude, phase and angle of arrival of the
received signal. Three fading cases are considered, namely
Rayleigh, Rician and Nakagami.
A. Rayleigh Fading
In Rayleigh fading channel, receiver antenna will
receive a lot of scattered or reflected signals, and is
usually used to model no direct path environment between
the transmitter and receiver [4].
B. Rician Fading
The difference between Rician fading and Rayleigh
fading is Rician fading channel has very strong line of
sight (LOS) component along with reflected wave.
Receiver antenna receives the signal from different paths
which caused by interference [5].
C. Nakagami Fading
Nakagami-m fading can be considered as generalized
fading channel model for Rayleigh and Rician. It has a
range of fading parameter m from 0.5 to λ channel
conditions. When m=1, it is known as a generalized
channel model for Rayleigh, whereas when m=λ, it will
generalize to non-fading AWGN channel [1].
Moreover, the channel capacity is also dependent on
the power allocation algorithm. Therefore, in order to
enhance the capacity of different fading channels in
MIMO-OFDM system, a hybrid power allocation
algorithm with Water Filling algorithm and Nash
algorithm is proposed and investigated.
II. SYSTEM MODEL AND EXISITING METHOD
A. MIMO-OFDM System Model
A MIMO-OFDM system with NT transmitter and NR
receiver antennas is shown at Fig. 1. For the fading
channels the Rayleigh, Rician and Nakagami fading
algorithms are considered. In MIMO system, transmitter
sends signals by multiple transmitter antennas. The
transmitted signals are passed through a channel matrix
consists of all N R × N T paths. The receiver antennas
receive the signals and decoded into original signal.
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2017 IEEE 13th International Colloquium on Signal Processing & its Applications (CSPA 2017), 10 - 12 March 2017, Penang, Malaysia

D. Water Filling Algorithm

Water filling algorithm is used to decide the maximum
transmitted power in each channel to achieve maximum
capacity [8]. This algorithm helps the transmitter antennas
to divide the total power in such a way that larger power
allocate to sub channel with higher gain while lesser
power to the smaller gain. The channel with high SNR
and gain is given more power. The power allocation of
Water Filling algorithm is given by

ͳ
ܲ௧ ൅ σ௡௜ୀଵ
‫ܪ‬௜ ͳ (3)
ܲൌ െ
σ ݄݈ܿܽ݊݊݁ ‫ܪ‬௜

Fig. 1. NR × NT MIMO system. where ܲ௧ denotes power allocation among different

channels.
B. SVD based MIMO
The Channel State Information (CSI) matrix H(n) can be III. PROPOSED METHOD
disintegrated into a number of parallel independent A. Nash Algorithm
Gaussian sub-channels using the Singular Value
Decomposition (SVD) [6], shown in Figure 2. SVD is an For the proposed method, Nash game formulation of the
effective method to analyze characteristics of MIMO SIR-based power control is hybrid with Water Filling
channels. algorithm. The Nash algorithm allows the transmitter uses
a cost function that is linear in power and logarithmically
dependent on SIR [9]. This algorithm also allows the
transmitter uses utility function to analyze the strategic
interactions in the network. Moreover, Nash algorithm
aims to find equilibrium that converge to target value [10].
According to [10], the power allocation among different
channels can be derived as follow
Fig. 2. Channel matrix of SVD based MIMO.
ܴܵܰ௧௔௥௚௘௧ ܾ ܲ௧ ଶ
ܲ௧ሺே௔௦௛ሻ ൌ ቆ ቇ ܲ௧ െ ൬ ൰ (4)
The matrix H is factorized into a matrix of unitary U and ܴܵܰ ʹܿ ܴܵܰ
V, as well as singular-valuesȦ. Ȧ is pre-multiplied by U
and post-multiplied V. The factorization can be denoted as where b is weights of transmitted power and c is weights
of SNR offset.
‫ ܪ‬ൌ ܷȦܸ ு (1) B. Hybrid of Water Filling and Nash Algorithm
Equation (4) is then substituted in equation (3). The new
where H is Hermitian transpose.
power allocation for this hybrid algorithm is revised as
Before the signal is transmitted by transmitter, the
follow
signal is pre-processed by V matrix. Then, the received
signal at receiver side is post-processed with UH matrix.
ܴܵܰ௧௔௥௚௘௧ ܾ ܲ ଶ ͳ
This means that before the signal is sent to over the ൬ ൰ ܲ௧ െ ቀ ௧ ቁ ൅ σ௡௜ୀଵ
ܴܵܰ ʹܿ ܴܵܰ ‫ܪ‬௜ ͳ (5)
channel, the transmitter filters vector x through V, and y is ܲൌ െ
filtered using UH [6]. σ ݄݈ܿܽ݊݊݁ ‫ܪ‬௜

C. Channel Capacity
The maximum information that can be transmitted reliably
over a wireless communication system is known as
channel capacity [7]. When the channel is under fading,
the capacity of the system will be reduced. The capacity
of a MIMO system is the algebraic sum of all capacities of
all channels and it can be denoted as follow:
௡
(2)
‫ ܥ‬ൌ ෍ Ž‘‰ ଶ ሺͳ ൅ ܲǤ ‫ܪ‬ሻ
௜ୀଵ
where P is the power allocation.
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
The capacity of MIMO-OFDM channel has been
simulated through MATLAB under different fading
channels, for various number of transmitter antennas and
receiver antennas. The scaling factor for distribution is set
as 1. The arrangements are 1x1, 2x2, 4x4, 6x6 and 8x8
with SNR range from -10 to 20 dB.
A. Channel capacity with Water Filling algorithm
The channel capacity using Water Filling algorithm under
Rayleigh, Rician and Nakagami fading are shown in
Fig.3, Fig.4 and Fig. 5 respectively.

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2017 IEEE 13th International Colloquium on Signal Processing & its Applications (CSPA 2017), 10 - 12 March 2017, Penang, Malaysia

has strong line of sights components, and the signal

attenuation is lesser.
B. Channel capacity with Hybrid of Water Filling and
Nash algorithm
The channel capacity using hybrid of Water Filling and
Nash algorithm under Rayleigh, Rician and Nakagami
fading are shown in Fig.6, Fig.7 and Fig. 8 respectively.
In Nash algorithm, let b=5 and c=1.

Fig. 3. Channel capacity in Rayleigh fading [8].

Fig. 6. Channel capacity in Rayleigh fading (proposed hybrid

method).

Fig. 4. Channel capacity in Rician fading [8].

Fig. 7. Channel capacity in Rician fading (proposed hybrid method).

Fig. 5. Channel capacity in Nakagami fading [8].

From Fig. 3 to Fig.5, all the results show that the capacity
of MIMO channel increases as increase in SNR. By
comparing the fading channels, Rician fading channel has
the highest capacity whereas Nakagami has the lowest. In
8x8 MIMO system with 20dB SNR, the system can
achieve about 85bits/s/Hz capacity, while Rayleigh and
Nakagami can achieve a capacity only 40bits/s/Hz and
34bits/s/Hz respectively. This is because Rician fading Fig. 8. Channel capacity in Nakagami fading (proposed hybrid
method).

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2017 IEEE 13th International Colloquium on Signal Processing & its Applications (CSPA 2017), 10 - 12 March 2017, Penang, Malaysia
By using the hybrid algorithm of Water Filling and Nash,
the capacity for all types fading channels shows a
significant improvement. In a 8x8 MIMO system with
20dB SNR, the capacity in Rician fading channel is
enhanced to about 140 bits/s/Hz, whereas Rayleigh and
Nakagami are also improved to 89bits/s/Hz and
82bits/s/Hz respectively. The enhancement of capacity is
about 50bits/s/Hz in average with this hybrid algorithm.
C. Power Allocation
The average power allocation of Water Filling algorithm
and hybrid algorithm of Water Filling and Nash are
illustrated in Fig. 9 and Fig. 10 respectively.
Fig. 9. Average power allocation using Water Filling algorithm.
Fig. 10. Average power allocation using hybrid of Water Filling and
Nash algorithm.
By comparing the average power allocation in Fig. 9 and
Fig. 10, the average power allocation for both algorithms
are the same. This is due to the power allocation is based
on SNR.
V. DISCUSSION
By using the hybrid algorithm of Water Filling and Nash
algorithm, the power allocation for every channel is
changed iteratively. The power allocation is first decided
by Nash algorithm, where the calculation of power will
stop when the SNR converged to an acceptable threshold
range of SNR. The calculated power is then put into
Water Filling algorithm, where the capacity of the channel
is decided here. The simulation results have shown that
the proposed method has improved the channel capacity
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of the MIMO-OFDM system, neither increase nor
decrease the average power allocation by comparing with
the existing method.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
Channel capacity is an important issues which is needed
to be considered in wireless communication. The joint
MIMO-OFDM is a method to enhance the channel
capacity at wireless communication. The proposed
method focus on the power allocation of every channel so
as to decide the channel capacity eventually. The hybrid
algorithm of Water Filling and Nash algorithm is applied
and able to enhance the channel capacity with Rayleigh,
Rician and Nakagami fading occurs at the channel. The
enhancement of capacity is about 50bits/s/Hz, even
though the average power allocation of hybrid algorithm
is still the same compared to existing power allocation
method, Water Filling algorithm. The great enhancement
in channel capacity is undeniable a highlight of the hybrid
algorithm.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank all those who contributed
toward making this research successful. Also, we would
like to thank to all the reviewers for their insightful
comment. This research is under support of Center of
Research and Innovation (PPI) and Faculty of Engineering
(FKJ), Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS).
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