Polarization diversity for indoor wireless communications

As the demand for high wireless data rates in indoor environments grows, we must find new ways to increase the performance of wireless links in multi-path fading. One common way to do this is to add diversity in the form of spatial or temporal diversity through the application of space-time block codes (STBCs). Recently, a method for combining STBCs with polarization diversity has been presented that allows for modeling the changes in polarization with quaternion numbers, introducing space-time-polarization block codes (STPBCs). This presentation shows some results from an initial investigation into the quality of cross polarized channels as compared to spatially separated channels to determine the feasibility of using STPBCs to enhance wireless data rates. It also presents a comparison of ergodic capacity of cross polarized channels and spatially separated transmits with polarized receive channels to compare the usefulness of hybrid spatial/polarization diversity schemes.