Symbol Error Rate Analysis of Spatially Correlated Keyhole MIMO Channels with Space-Time Block Coding and Linear Precoding

Abstract — This paper derives exact expressions for the symbol error rate (SER) of orthogonal space-time block codes over a spatially correlated multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel, in which the signal propagation suffers from a keyhole effect. A correlated double Rayleigh fading keyhole channel is assumed and easy to evaluate expressions are presented for multi-level phase shift keying (M-PSK), pulse amplitude modulation (M-PAM), and quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM). These expressions are verified by estimating the SER via the simulation of the MIMO system. The given expressions are then used to quantify the performance improvements attainable with minimum SER linear precoding over a correlated keyhole channel. I