International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 8887)

Volume 63 No.14, February 2013

Performance Analysis of MIMO Systems over

AWGN Channel with Antenna Selection using
Zero Forcing Receivers

Navjot Kaur Lavish Kansal

Lovely Professional University Lovely Professional University
Phagwara, India Phagwara, India

ABSTRACT a single frequency band. In general, having multiple antennas

High data rates within the limited radio frequency (RF) offers three potential use cases: diversity, beam forming, and
spectrum is always desirable that leads to radios with space division multiplexing (SDM). MIMO systems are
capabilities beyond a single-input single-output (SISO) implemented to obtain a diversity gain to combat signal
topology. Recently introduced wireless systems have adopted fading.
multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) topologies that use An efficient implementation of space-time block coding
two or more transmitters and two or more receivers to send (STBC) for broadband wireless communications improves
data simultaneously over the same RF bandwidth. The the performance and diversity gains of a
performance of MIMO system can be improved by using space time (ST) coding system through a number of
multiple antennas at transmitter and receiver so as to provide parameters including type of trellis codes and channel
spatial diversity. In this paper, the performance analysis of fading[3][4]. The two main functions of STC: diversity &
MIMO system over AWGN fading channel with ZF receiver multiplexing. The maximum performance needs tradeoffs
is presented. The effects of the antenna selection can also be between diversity and multiplexing. V-BLAST is a system in
analyzed from the simulated results. The BER (Bit Error Rate) which full spatial diversity is usually not achieved [5].
performance characteristics of Zero-Forcing (ZF) receiver is
investigated for M-PSK modulation technique over the
AWGN channel.

Keywords MIMO, AWGN, spatial diversity, BER, ZF,

M-PSK, SNR, multi-path fading, STBC.

1. INTRODUCTION
Multiple antennas employed at transmitter and receiver sides
are used in wireless communication so as to achieve the high
data rates through spatial multiplexing [1]. MIMO involves Fig. 1.1: Block Diagram of 2X2 MIMO System
multiple transmitters sending unique data content to multiple
receivers using spatial multiplexing. MIMO does increase The block diagram of MIMO system is shown in the Fig. 1.1.
data rates and requires better SNR than an equivalent SISO The basic main idea of MIMO is to improve BER or data rate
transmission. This method offers higher capacity to wireless (bits/sec) by using multiple TX/RX antennas. [6]. For
systems and the capacity increases linearly with the number of achieving high data rate or improved BER, the core scheme
antennas. used in MIMO system is space-time coding (STC).

Future trends of wireless communications mentioned below MIMO provides higher capacity (bits/s/Hz), better
leads to MIMO development:- transmission quality (BER), increased coverage and improved
Future wireless applications create insatiability as demand user position estimation due to the following factors:
for high data rate and high link quality wireless access Spatial multiplexing gain : Capacity gain at no additional
has increased a lot. power or bandwidth consumption obtained through the use of
Spectrum has become a scarce and expensive resource as multiple antennas at both sides of a wireless radio link
bandwidth is very limited Diversity gain : Improvement in link reliability obtained
Regulation, device and system capacity concerns as by transmitting the same data on independently fading
transmit power is limited branches
Time and frequency domain processing are at limits, but Array gain
space is not! Interference reduction

A MIMO system utilizes spatial diversity by using spatially In this paper, the effects of AWGN channel are considered on
separated antennas in a dense multipath scattering the performance of MIMO systems with different antenna
environment [2]. In MIMO, phased sets of antennas take selection using ZF receivers. AWGN channel is a universal
advantage of the differences in the spatial propagation paths channel which adds a white Gaussian noise to the signal
to improve signal robustness or to send multiple data sets over

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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 8887)
Volume 63 No.14, February 2013

passing through it. It is a channel model used for analyzing Equalizer and Minimum Mean Square Equalizers. Based on
the various modulation schemes. the mathematical modeling and the simulation result it is
inferred that the ML equalizer is the best of the three
equalizers.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Multiple input-multiple output (MIMO) communication 3. MODULATION TECHNIQUE
systems employing coding techniques appropriate to multiple
antenna transmissions have recently been embraced as an The digital communication system consists of two
effective means to achieve high data rate over wireless fundamentals components i.e. modulation and encoder.
channels. Modulation is the process of mapping the digital information
to analog form so it can be transmitted over a long distance
A. I. Sulyman [7] describes the impact of antenna selection on via channel. Modulator is a device used in transmitter side to
the performance of multiple input-multiple output (MIMO) perform modulation and demodulation is done at the receiver
systems over nonlinear communication channels. The author end by making use of demodulator. Demodulation is the
has derived exact analytical expressions for evaluating the inverse process of modulation so as to recover the transmitted
PWEP performance of space-time trellis codes over nonlinear digital information.
MIMO channel. Phase-shift keying (M-PSK) for which the signal set is:

C. Wang [8] explains the approach to increase the capacity of

MIMO systems by employing the spatial multiplexing where (1.1)
independent information streams are transmitted from the where Es the signal energy per symbol Ts is the symbol
antennas. These information streams are then separated at the duration and fc is the carrier frequency.
receiver by means of appropriate signal processing techniques
such as maximum likelihood (ML) which achieves optimal This phase of the carrier takes on one of the M possible
performance or linear receivers like Zero-Forcing (ZF) which values.
provide sub-optimal performance but it also offers significant (1.2)
computational complexity reduction with tolerable
performance degradation. M-ary PSK modulation yields a circular constellation as
shown in Fig. 1.2. The main constraint was to keep the
The comparison of MIMO with SISO technology was amplitude of the transmitted signals be constant.
discussed by S. G. Kim et. al [9]. MIMO can not only
improve spectral efficiency, but also enhance link throughput
or capacity of the system. The authors presented a tight closed
form BER approximation of MPSK for MIMO ZF receiver
over continuous flat fading channels. The larger the difference
between the number of transmit antennas and the number of
receive antennas is, the better performance is.

A simple two-branch transmit diversity scheme was presented

by S. Alamouti [10]. The scheme uses two transmit antennas
and one receive antenna. It provides the same diversity order
as maximal-ratio receiver combining (MRRC) with one
transmit antenna, and two receive antennas.

V. Tarokh et.al [11] design a channel codes for improving the

high data rate and the reliability of communications over Fig. 1.2: Signal Constellation Diagram for 4-PSK
fading channels using multiple transmit antennas. Data is
encoded by a channel code and the encoded data is split into
multiple streams that are simultaneously transmitted using 4. AWGN CHANNEL
multiple transmit antennas. The received signal at each
receive antenna is a linear superposition of the multiple AWGN channel is a channel that adds a white Gaussian noise
transmitted signals perturbed by noise. to the signal passing through it. This implies that the
channels amplitude frequency response is flat (thus with
The performance analysis of the low-cost and effective unlimited or infinite bandwidth) and phase frequency
transmission strategy that employs the simple spatial response is linear for all frequencies so that modulated signals
multiplexing at the transmitter and zero-forcing processing at pass through it without any amplitude loss and phase
the receiver in multiuser MIMO scheduling systems was distortion of frequency components. Fading does not exist.
discussed by C. Chen [12]. The only distortion is introduced by the AWGN.

N. S. Kumar et. al [13], investigated about the three types of The received signal is simplified to
equalizer for MIMO wireless receivers. The authors discussed (1.3)
about a fixed antenna MIMO antenna configuration and where n(t) is the additive white Gaussian noise.
compare the performance with all the three types of equalizer
based receiver namely ZF, ML, and MMSE. BER The whiteness of n(t) implies that it is a stationary random
performance of ML Equalizer is superior than zero forcing process with a flat power spectral density (PSD) for all
frequencies. It is a convention to assume its PSD as

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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 8887)
Volume 63 No.14, February 2013

(1.4)
6. ZERO FORCING EQUALIZER
This implies that a white process has infinite power. This of
course is a mathematical idealization. According to the Zero Forcing Equalizer is a linear equalization algorithm
Wiener-Khinchine theorem, the autocorrelation function of which inverts the frequency response of the channel used in
the AWGN is communication systems.

(1.5) The Zero-Forcing Equalizer applies the inverse of the channel

where ( ) is the Dirac delta function. to the received signal, to restore the signal before the channel.
The name Zero Forcing corresponds to bringing down the ISI
to zero in a noise free case. This will be useful when ISI is
5. MIMO SYSTEM MODEL significant compared to noise [8] [9].

For a channel with frequency response F(f) the zero forcing

equalizer C(f) is constructed such that C(f) = 1 / F(f). Thus the
combination of channel and equalizer gives a flat frequency
response and linear phase F(f)C(f) = 1. By using the linear
model the received vector can be represented as:

y (1.8)

For a 2x2 MIMO channel, the channel is modeled as,

Fig. 1.3: The MIMO Channel

(1.9)
The 2X2 MIMO channel is represented in Fig. 1.3 with an 7. SIMULATED RESULTS
antenna array with 2 elements at the transmitter and an
antenna array with 2 elements at the receiver is considered.
The input-output notation of the MIMO system can now be In this section, BER (Bit Error Rate) analysis of MIMO
expressed by the equation: system over AWGN channel using STBC code structure is
done for M-PSK Modulation techniques. The BER analysis of
(1.6)
MIMO system is done for M-PSK over AWGN fading
where denotes convolution, s(t) is a nt X 1 vector channel where M can be 32, 64, 128, 256, 512 and 1024 for
corresponding to the nt transmitted signals, y(t) is a nr X 1 different antenna configurations. Here receiving antennas
vector corresponding to the nr and u(t) is the additive white used are ranging from NR = 1 to NR = 4.
noise.
(A) M-PSK over AWGN Channel
The impulse response of the channel between the jth 0
SNR vs BER Plot of 32-PSK in AWGN Channel
transmitter element and the ith receiver element is denoted as 10
No. of Rx = 1
hij(,t). The MIMO channel can then be described by the nr X No. of Rx = 2
nt H(,t) matrix: No. of Rx = 3
No. of Rx = 4

-1
10
bit error rate

(1.7) -2
10

The matrix elements are complex numbers that correspond to

the attenuation and phase shift that the wireless channel
introduces to the signal reaching the receiver with delay .
-3
10
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
signal to noise ratio

(a) 32-PSK

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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 8887)
Volume 63 No.14, February 2013

SNR vs BER Plot of 64-PSK in AWGN Channel SNR vs BER Plot of 512-PSK in AWGN Channel
0 0
10 10
No. of Rx = 1 No. of Rx = 1
No. of Rx = 2 No. of Rx = 2
No. of Rx = 3 No. of Rx = 3
No. of Rx = 4 No. of Rx = 4

-1 -1
10 10
bit error rate

bit error rate

-2
10 -2
10

-3
10 -3
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 10
signal to noise ratio 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
signal to noise ratio
(b) 64-PSK (e) 512-PSK
SNR vs BER Plot of 128-PSK in AWGN Channel
0
10 SNR vs BER Plot of 1024-PSK in AWGN Channel
0
10
No. of Rx = 1
No. of Rx = 1
No. of Rx = 2
No. of Rx = 2
No. of Rx = 3
No. of Rx = 3
No. of Rx = 4
No. of Rx = 4
-1
10 -1
10
bit error rate

bit error rate

-2 -2
10 10

-3 -3
10 10
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
signal to noise ratio signal to noise ratio

(c) 128-PSK (f) 1024-PSK

SNR vs BER Plot of 256-PSK in AWGN Channel
0
10 Fig. 1.4: SNR vs BER plots for M-PSK over
No. of Rx = 1
No. of Rx = 2
AWGN channel
No. of Rx = 3
No. of Rx = 4 In Fig. 1.4 (a) (f), SNR vs. BER plots for M-PSK over
-1
AWGN channel for MIMO system with different antenna
10
configurations have been presented. From the graphs, it can
be concluded that as the number of receiving antennas are
bit error rate

increasing in the MIMO system, the BER keeps on decreasing

due to space diversity. Thus the system provides better BER
-2
performance over the AWGN fading channel.
10

-3
10
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
signal to noise ratio

(d) 256-PSK from NR = 1 to NR = 4. Spatial diversity techniques are

employed to improve signal quality and coverage. The
8. CONCLUSION multiple receivers or multiple transmitters reduce multipath
fading and enhance SNR. Thus the proposed system provides
In this paper, the performance analysis of MIMO system over better BER performance.
AWGN fading channel employing different antenna
configurations is presented. It can be depicted from the graphs
that the BER keeps on decreasing in MIMO system due to
space diversity as increasing the number of receiving
antennas. Here receiving antennas have been used ranging

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Volume 63 No.14, February 2013

9. REFERENCES [8] C. Wang, On the Performance of the MIMO Zero-

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