Numerical capacity analysis of time varying fading channels using finite state Markov models

The effect of channel gain quantization on the information capacity of unknown time varying flat fading channels is investigated. The phase and/or amplitude of the flat fading channel gain is modelled as a finite state Markov (FSM) process and the information capacity of the FSM channel is calculated numerically as a measure for choosing the number of channel quantization levels, as well as quantization thresholds. The results indicate that for binary signalling, the capacity is saturated beyond 8 to 16 levels of phase and 8 to 16 levels of amplitude quantization.