Spatial and temporal relationship in space-time processing for MIMO wireless communications with frequency selective fading channels

This paper studies the relationship between spatial and temporal entities of the space-time processing (STP) for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communications in a frequency-selective fading channel. Analysis based on the zero-forcing criterion suggests that minimum number of the spatial receive antenna, N, and the temporal equaliser tap, (K+1) of the ‘beamformer-equaliser’ can be optimally obtained given the prior knowledge of both the number of L multiple paths with delay-spread within each channel impulse response of MIMO channel and Q multiple users (or multiple transmit antennas) that present simultaneously in a MIMO system. Detailed investigation between these four entities: N, K, Q & L in STP is presented to provide more insightful understanding for the operation of the beamformer-equaliser structure and STP in the frequency-selective fading MIMO environment.