Increase The Data Capacity Using MIMO

Limited bandwidth and the need to support a growing number of wireless services have opened the way for the use of non-traditional techniques in communications systems for increased data capacity. One of these techniques is the use of Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) system configuration, in which multiple antennas are employed.

The greater complexity of MIMO systems compared to conventional single-channel architectures make testing these systems challenging, requiring special equipment and methodologies. Increased data throughput is critical to the success of the future mobile wireless services the promise reliable voice, data and video access. Although the data throughput of a communications channel's can be increased by increasing the channel bandwidth, bandwidth is generally licensed and limited.

A more practical approach lies in the adoption of the advanced modulation formats, such as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and novel communication system architectures, such as Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) configurations. A MIMO system uses multiple antennas and spatial diversity between them to increase data throughput without increasing bandwidth.

High data throughput has been a guiding requirement for many recent wireless communications standards, with provisions for the use of MIMO in number of these newer standards, including IEEE 802.11n WLAN, IEEE 802.16e mobile WiMax Wave 2 and 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE). These system couple MIMO with the use of OFDM or Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) modulation to achieve significant increases in data throughput without increasing the channel bandwidth.