High-throughput multiple-input multipleoutput systems for in-home multimedia streaming

Wireless communication systems based on multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology have the potential to achieve increased spectral efficiency with no additional transmit power or bandwidth requirements. This can be achieved by exploiting the spatial subchannels between the multiple transmit and receive elements. The enhanced performance of MIMO technology makes it a strong candidate for ad hoc systems requiring very high throughput, such as high-definition multimedia streaming in the home. In this article we compare the performance of conventional and newly proposed MIMO architectures for such applications. Specifically designed antenna arrays are proposed as a solution to significantly reduced MIMO performance in line-of-sight (LoS) conditions. To help in the design of such systems, the criterion for achieving maximum MIMO capacity in LoS is presented as a function of the transmitter-to-receiver separation distance, the array orientation and the element spacings. The performance of the LoS-enhanced proposal and the conventional system is quantified in terms of the channel capacity, the packet error rate (PER) and the throughput by employing a MIMO-enabled WLAN physical layer simulator. The results from MIMO measurements performed inside an anechoic chamber and in an indoor environment are presented to validate the theoretic predictions