MIMO Transmission with Rank Adaptation for Multi-Gigabit 60GHz Wireless

In this paper, we propose a practical and systematic approach to implement the MIMO transmission with rank adaptation for 60 GHz systems. In the 60 GHz system with multiple antennas, the transmit and receive (Tx-Rx) antenna arrays are grouped into a number of subarrays with a predetermined subarray separation based on the derived geometrical criteria of creating high rank MIMO in LoS environments. We first apply an enhanced blind beamforming technique based on a stochastic gradient algorithm (SGA) for the inner-subarray antennas, which does not require channel state information (CSI) at either the transmitter or the receiver. Secondly, the composite MIMO channel, as a joint effect of Tx-Rx beamforming and the channel impulse response, can be estimated with much reduced complexity. Finally, the MIMO transmission with rank adaptation is performed by adaptively selecting the better scheme out of the high-rank spatial multiplexing and the rank-1 beamforming whichever gives a higher system throughput. Simulation results show that high-rank spatial multiplexing and rank-1 beamforming outperform each other at different geometrical placements and transmit power settings. The proposed MIMO transmission with rank adaptation offers significant performance gain especially at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regions.