A novel metric for measuring multiple antennas system capacity over energy consumption

International audienceIn this paper, we evaluate the capacity to the total energy consumption per bit ratio of multiple antennas systems. The wireless communication system is assumed to operate in indoor propagation environment. A scattering model of wireless communication channel is presented. The channel model considers both the line of sight (LOS) and the NLOS (non line of sight) components. Computer simulations are carried out for the capacity to the total energy consumption ratio by varying both the distance separation between the transmitter and the receiver and the number of transmit antennas. We show in this paper, that the gain in capacity increases with the number of antennas but it is still limited by the total energy consumption. As such, we find by simulations the limits for increasing the number of transmit antennas. This could be determined by a new metric which is the "capacity to energy ratio"