Performance analysis of MIMO wireless systems with spatially correlated fading channels

Using the replica method originally developed in statistical physics, we investigate the asymptotic capacity of a Gaussian multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) point-to-point system with fading correlation at both transmitter and receiver. The analytical result is not only rigorously valid for systems with large array sizes, but also produces highly accurate results even for systems with only a few antenna elements. We also provide an efficient iterative water-filling algorithm to determine the transmit signal covariance matrices when only the channel covariance information is available at the receivers.