Space-time coding over correlated fading channels with antenna selection

In, antenna selection for multiple antenna transmission systems has been studied under the assumption that the subchannels between antenna pairs fade independently. In this paper, we consider the performance of such systems when the subchannels experience correlated fading. We assume that the channel state information is available only at the receiver, the antenna selection is performed only at the receiver, and the selection is based on the instantaneous received signal power. We quantify the effects of channel correlation on the diversity and coding gain when the receiver system uses all or a subset of the antennas. Theoretical results indicate that the correlations in the channel does not degrade the diversity order provided that the channel is full-rank. However, it does result in some performance loss in the coding gain. Furthermore, for non-full-rank channels, the diversity order of the system degrades significantly and is determined by the rank of the channel correlation matrix.