Enhancing Capacity in Compact MIMO-OFDM Systems With Frequency-Selective Matching

Mutual coupling among receive antennas can profoundly reduce capacity in multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) systems. Prior work has shown that these losses can often be significantly reduced by using sophisticated antenna matching at the receiver. However, previous studies have focused exclusively on frequency non-selective matching, and rely on assumptions that are valid only for small bandwidths. In this paper, we consider the capacity of broadband MIMO-OFDM systems with coupled receive antennas. We present upper and lower bounds on the best capacity that can be achieved by physically realizable, frequency-selective antenna matching. The upper and lower bounds coincide for most antenna configurations considered in the examples, and thus determine the performance of capacity-optimal matching. These results suggest that frequency-selective matching can significantly increase capacity in the presence of strong coupling. Moreover, these gains can be achieved by a simple class of matching networks that are easily realized in hardware.