Instantaneous Mutual Information and Eigen-Channels in MIMO Mobile Rayleigh Fading

In this paper, we study two important metrics in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) time-varying Rayleigh flat fading channels. One is the eigen-channel, and the other is the instantaneous mutual information (IMI). Their second-order statistics, such as the correlation coefficient, level crossing rate (LCR), and average fade/outage duration, are investigated, assuming a general nonisotropic scattering environment. Exact closed-form expressions are derived and Monte Carlo simulations are provided to verify the accuracy of the analytical results. For the eigen-channels, we found they tend to be spatio-temporally uncorrelated in large MIMO systems. For the IMI, the results show that its correlation coefficient can be well approximated by the squared amplitude of the correlation coefficient of the channel, under certain conditions. Moreover, we also found the LCR of IMI is much more sensitive to the scattering environment than that of each eigen-channel.