Antenna selection for V-BLAST systems in correlated channel

Spatial multiplexing systems can provide significant capacity improvement but are sensitive to channel correlation. Antenna selection is a low-cost low-complexity alternative to resolve these problems. This paper proposes a new transmit antenna selection algorithm for the spatial multiplexing systems with the Vertical-Bell Labs Layered Space-Time(V-BLAST)nonlinear receiver in correlated channel. The proposed scheme separates the optimization into two parts: it first chooses the optimal number of substreams in terms of the singular values of the channel matrix, then adapts the mapping of substreams to antennas according to the post-detection signal-to-noise ratio(SNR). Simulation results illustrate that the proposed two-step selection criterion can provide greater selection gain than the existing singular value based selection criterion as SNR and scattering angle increases. The proposed criterion outperforms the existing one by 0.3 dB at a vector symbol error rate of 10-3 and scattering angle of 20 degree.