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CAPACITY OF WIRELESS CHANNELS

over wireless channels with asymptotically small error probability, assuming no

 Shannon defined capacity as the maximum mutual information of channel.

 Capacity of channel means, maximum error-free data rate that a channel can

support.

 Mutual information :

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 Consider a discrete-time Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel with

channel input/output relationship.

 𝑦 [𝑖] = 𝑥 [𝑖] + 𝑛 [𝑖] , where 𝑥 [𝑖] is the channel input at time 𝑖, 𝑦 [𝑖] is the corresponding

channel output and 𝑛 [𝑖] is a White Gaussian Noise random process.

 The channel SNR, the power in 𝑥 [𝑖] divided by the power in 𝑛 [𝑖] , is constant and

given by 𝛾= 𝑃 /𝑁0𝐵 , P is transmit power,𝑁0 is the power spectral density of the noise
with unit W/Hz and B is the received signal bandwidth.

 The capacity of channel by Shannon’s formula: ,

where the capacity units are bits per second (bps).

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Wireless channels typically exhibit flat or frequency-selective
fading. In the next two sections we consider capacity of flat-
fading and frequency-selective fading channels under different
assumptions regarding what is known about the channel.

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Channel and System Model
 Assume a discrete-time channel with stationary and ergodic time-varying gain
and AWGN 𝑛 [𝑖] .

 The channel power gain g[i] follows a given distribution p(g), e.g. for Rayleigh fading,
p(g) is exponential. The channel gain g[i] can change at each time i.
 The channel power gain 𝑔 [𝑖] follow a given distribution p(g) and independent of the
channel input.
 𝑔 [𝑖] is the fading distribution over the channel.
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 Let P denote the average transmit signal power, 𝑁0/2 denote the noise spectral density of n[i],

and B denote the received signal bandwidth.

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 Capacity defines theoretical rate limit Maximum error free rate a channel can
support.

 Depends on what is known about the channel.

 Unknown fading Worst case channel capacity.

 The capacity of this channel depends on what is known about g[i] at the transmitter and

receiver. We will consider three different scenarios regarding this knowledge: Channel
Distribution Information (CDI), Receiver CSI and Transmitter and Receiver CSI

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A. First consider the case where the channel gain distribution p(g) or,

equivalently, the distribution of SNR p(ℽ) is known to the transmitter and

 Now consider the case where the CSI g[i] is known at the receiver at time i. Equivalently, g[i] is

known at the receiver at time i.

 Assume that both the transmitter and receiver know the distribution of g[i].

 In this case, there are two channel capacity definitions that are relevant to system design:

Shannon capacity, also called ergodic capacity, and capacity with outage.

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 For the AWGN channel, Shannon capacity defines the maximum data rate that can be sent over the

channel with asymptotically small error probability.

 Note that for Shannon capacity the rate transmitted over the channel is constant: the transmitter cannot

adapt its transmission strategy relative to the CSI.

 Capacity with outage is defined as the maximum rate that can be transmitted over a channel with some

outage probability corresponding to the probability that the transmission cannot be decoded with
negligible error probability.

 The basic premise of capacity with outage is that a high data rate can be sent over the channel and decoded

correctly except when the channel is in deep fading. By allowing the system to lose some data in the event
of deep fades, a higher data rate can be maintained if all data must be received correctly regardless of the
fading state.

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 Shannon capacity of a fading channel with receiver CSI for an average power constraint P can

be obtained as

 This formula is a probabilistic average, i.e. Shannon capacity is equal to Shannon capacity for

an AWGN channel with SNR γ, given by B log2(1 + γ), averaged over the distribution of γ. That
is why Shannon capacity is also called Ergodic capacity.

 By Jensen’s inequality,

Where ℽ’ is the average SNR on the channel.

 Here we see that the Shannon capacity of a fading channel with receiver CSI only is less than

the Shannon capacity of an AWGN channel with the same average SNR.

 In other words, fading reduces Shannon capacity when only the receiver has CSI.
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Capacity with outage applies to slowly-varying channels.
 Capacity with outage allows bits sent over a given transmission burst to be decoded at the end

of the burst with some probability that these bits will be decoded incorrectly.

 If the channel has received SNR 𝛾 during a burst, then data can be sent over the channel at rate

𝐶 = 𝐵 𝑙𝑜𝑔2( 1 + 𝛾) with negligible probability of error.

 Capacity with outage allows bits sent over a given transmission burst to be decoded at the end

of the burst with some probability that these bits will be decoded incorrectly.

 Specifically, the transmitter fixes a minimum received SNR and encodes for a data rate 𝐶 = 𝐵

𝑙𝑜𝑔2( 1 + 𝛾𝑚𝑖𝑛) .

 The data is correctly received if the instantaneous received SNR is greater than or equal to 𝛾𝑚𝑖𝑛

.
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 If the received SNR is below pout then the receiver declares an outage.

 The probability of outage is thus

 The average rate correctly received over many transmission bursts is s since data
is only correctly received on 1- pout transmissions.

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A. When both the transmitter and receiver have CSI, the transmitter can
adapt its transmission strategy relative to this CSI

In this case, there is no notion of capacity versus outage where the transmitter sends bits that
cannot be decoded, since the transmitter knows the channel and thus will not send bits unless
they can be decoded correctly.
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 Let denote Cs the capacity of a particular channel s Ɛ S, and p(s) denote the probability, or

fraction of time, that the channel is in state s. The capacity of this time-varying channel is then
given by,

 The capacity of an AWGN channel with average received SNR 𝛾 is,

 The capacity of the fading channel with transmitter and receiver side information is

 Define the fading channel capacity with average power constraint as,

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 Solving for P(ℽ) with the constraint that P(ℽ) > 0 yields the optimal power adaptation that

maximizes the above equation as,

Where ℽ⸰ is the threshold value of SNR

 If ℽ [i] is below this cutoff then no data is transmitted over the ith time interval, so the

channel is only used at time i if,

 Then yields the capacity formula,

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 The interpretation for power allocation says that, below 𝛾0 there is no transmission.
 Very good channels are on extreme right, so they get power approximately,
 For better SNRs, increasing level of power allocation.

This power allocation can be interpreted in terms of water filling, because inside the
bowl or basin , when we fill water, the depth of water tells us how much power allocate
for that SNR.

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 Consider a suboptimal transmitter adaptation scheme where the transmitter uses the CSI to

maintain a constant received power, i.e., it inverts the channel fading.

 The channel then appears to the encoder and decoder as a time-invariant AWGN channel. This

power adaptation, called channel inversion, is given by P(γ)/P = σ/γ, where σ equals the
constant received SNR that can be maintained with the transmit power constraint given below.

 Fading channel capacity with channel inversion is just the capacity of an AWGN channel with

SNR σ

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 The capacity-achieving transmission strategy for this capacity uses a fixed-rate encoder and

decoder designed for an AWGN channel with SNR σ.

 This has the advantage of maintaining a fixed data rate over the channel regardless of channel

conditions.

 For this reason the channel capacity given in the above equation is called zero-outage capacity,

since the data rate is fixed under all channel conditions and there is no channel outage.

 It exhibit a large data-rate reduction relative to Shannon capacity in extreme fading

environments.

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 The reason zero-outage capacity may be significantly smaller than Shannon capacity on a

fading channel is the requirement to maintain a constant data rate in all fading states.

 By suspending transmission in particularly bad fading states (outage channel states), we can

maintain a higher constant data rate in the other states and thereby significantly increase
capacity.

 The outage capacity is defined as the maximum rate that can be maintained in all non-outage

channel state times.

 Outage capacity is achieved with truncated channel inversion policy for power adaption that

only compensate for fading above a certain cutoff fade depth γ0

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 The outage capacity associated with a given outage probability Pout and corresponding cutoff γ0

is given by,

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 Consider a time-invariant channel with frequency response H(f).

 Assume a total transmit power constraint P.

 When the channel is time-invariant it is typically assumed that H(f) is known at both the

transmitter and receiver.

 Let us first assume that H(f) is block-fading, so that frequency is divided into sub channels

of bandwidth B, where H(f) = Hj is constant over each block.

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 The capacity of this parallel set of channels is the sum of rates associated with each

channel with power optimally allocated over all channels,

 This is similar to the capacity and optimal power allocation for a flatfading channel,

with power and rate changing over frequency in a deterministic way rather than over
time in a probabilistic way.

 The optimal power allocation is found via the same Lagrangian technique used in the

flat-fading case, which leads to the water-filling power allocation

for some cutoff value γ0

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 Let, ℽj = |Hj |²P/(N0B) is the SNR associated with the jth channel

 This optimal power allocation is illustrated in the below given figure.

 The cutoff value is obtained by substituting the power adaptation formula into the power

constraint, so γ0 must satisfy

 The capacity then becomes,

 This capacity is achieved by sending at different rates and powers over each subchannel.
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