On finite-codelength outage capacity for MIMO channels

In this work we propose a new fading channel performance measure which allows for the realistic information-theoretic treatment of practical communication systems that are subject to strict delay constraints. Simultaneous consideration of finite-length codes and frequency-nonselective slow (quasistatic) fading lead us to a combination of these two concepts in the form of a notion we call finite-codelength outage (FCO). In this context we derive the FCO capacity for the fading multiple input-multiple output channel for the maximum likelihood receiver and two versions of the Bell Labs layered space-time (BLAST) architecture, namely the original diagonal BLAST and our own rate-tailored BLAST.