System level performance evaluation of MIMO and SISO OFDM-based WLANs

In this paper we investigate the system level performance of an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) Wireless LAN network enhanced through Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) techniques and compare it to the performance of the conventional Single-Input Single-Output (SISO) network. The MIMO scheme we apply is closed loop power allocation based on Singular Value Decomposition (SVD). The above investigations are carried out by means of a software based simulation platform. In order to characterize the system level performance accurately, a suitable link-to-system interface based on channel capacity has been developed. The performance evaluation is achieved by monitoring the average system throughput and the percentage of satisfied users. Extensive system level simulations have been carried out that prove the superiority of MIMO techniques especially for heavy traffic load conditions.