Multiple-input multiple-output Rayleigh flat fading outage capacity using channel estimation

Upper and lower bounds on the outage capacity for a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) Rayleigh flat fading wireless baseband communication environment are derived for the case when the channel is completely unknown at the transmitter and the receiver has access to channel state information (CSI) via pilot estimation. The bounds show that the channel estimation error significantly impacts the outage capacity. A change in the outage probability is also shown to have a larger impact on the outage capacity when the channel estimation error is small. To get an idea of how these bounds are affected by a temporally correlated channel, they are calculated when pilot symbol assisted modulation (PSAM) is employed. When the doppler frequency of the channel is increased, the outage capacity deteriorates quicker.