Adaptive MIMO antenna selection via discrete stochastic optimization

Recently it has been shown that it is possible to improve the performance of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems by employing a larger number of antennas than actually used and selecting the optimal subset based on the channel state information. Existing antenna selection algorithms assume perfect channel knowledge and optimize criteria such as Shannon capacity or various bounds on error rate. This paper examines MIMO antenna selection algorithms where the set of possible solutions is large and only a noisy estimate of the channel is available. In the same spirit as traditional adaptive filtering algorithms, we propose simulation based discrete stochastic optimization algorithms to adaptively select a better antenna subset using criteria such as maximum mutual information, bounds on error rate, etc. These discrete stochastic approximation algorithms are ideally suited to minimize the error rate since computing a closed form expression for the error rate is intractable. We also consider scenarios of time-varying channels for which the antenna selection algorithms can track the time-varying optimal antenna configuration. We present several numerical examples to show the fast convergence of these algorithms under various performance criteria, and also demonstrate their tracking capabilities.