Non-coherent Rayleigh fading MIMO channels: Capacity Supremum

Abstract

This paper investigates the limits of information transfer over a fast Rayleigh fading MIMO channel, where neither the transmitter nor the receiver has the knowledge of the channel state information (CSI) except the fading statistics. We develop a scalar channel model due to absence of the phase information in non-coherent Rayleigh fading and derive a capacity supremum with the number of receive antennas at any signal to noise ratio (SNR) using Lagrange optimisation. Also, we conceptualise the discrete nature of the optimal input distribution by posing the optimisation on the channel mutual information for $N$ discrete inputs. Furthermore, we derive an expression for the asymptotic capacity when the input power is large, and compare with the existing capacity results when the receiver is equipped with a large number of antennas.