Capacity of Wireless

Channels
Shannon

Capacity
Capacity of Wireless Channels
Capacity of Flat-Fading Channels
Fading

Known at RX
Fading Known at TX and RX (Optimal
Rate and Power Adaptation)

Capacity of Wireless
Channels

Pioneered by Claude Shannon in 1948

Shannon capacity is defined as the maximum

Mutual Information of the channel (IT definition)

Capacity defines theoretical rate limit: Maximum

error free rate a channel can support
(Operational definition)

Theoretical limit (not achievable)

A property of channel (bandwidth, noise). Does

not depend on design techniques

Additive White
Gaussian Noise (AWGN)

Additive white Gaussian noise(AWGN) is a basic

noise model used inInformationtheory to mimic the
effect of many random processes that occur in nature.
The modifiers denote specific characteristics:

'Additive' because it is added to any noise that might be

intrinsic to the information system.

'White' refers to idea that it has uniform power across

the frequency band for the information system. It is an
analogy to the color white which has uniform emissions
at all frequencies in thevisible spectrum.

Additive White
Gaussian Noise (AWGN)

'Gaussian' because it has anormal distributionin the time

domain with an average time domain value of zero.

The AWGN channel is a good model for manysatelliteand

deep space communication links. It is not a good model
for most terrestrial links because of multipath, terrain
blocking, interference, etc. However, for terrestrial path
modeling, AWGN is commonly used to simulate
background noise of the channel under study, in addition
to multipath, terrain blocking, interference, ground
clutter and self interference that modern radio systems
encounter in terrestrial operation.

Capacity in AWGN
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.

Capacity in AWGN
The

channel SNR, the power in x[i] divided by

the power in n[i], is constant and given by

= S/(N0B), where N0 is the power spectral

density of the noise. The capacity of this
channel is given by Shannons well-known
formula
C = B log2(1 + ),
where the capacity units are bits/second (bps).

Capacity of Flat-Fading
Channels
Depends on what is known about the
channel
Unknown
Worst-case

Fading
Hard

Fading:
channel capacity

Statistics Known

to find capacity

Fading
Fading

Known at Receiver Only

known at Transmitter and

Receiver

Capacity of Flat-Fading
Channels

Capacity of Flat-Fading
Channels

Capacity of Flat-Fading
Channels

We now consider the case where the CSI g[i] is known

at the receiver at time i. Equivalently, [i] is known at
the receiver at time i. We also 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. As for the AWGN channel, Shannon capacity
defines the maximum data rate that can be sent over
the channel with asymptotically small error probability.

Channels
Receiver CSI Only
Channel

Side Information (CSI) is

channel power gain

Fading

value known at receiver only;

fading statistics known at both
transmitter and receiver

Shannon

capacity
(ergodic capacity)
C B log 2 1 p( )d
0

This is average capacity which is lower than

capacity with average .

Channels
Receiver CSI Only
Jensens

inequality:

E[ B log 2 1 ] B log 2 1 p ( )d
0

Shannon

B log 2 (1 E[ ]) B log 2 (1 )

capacity with receiver CSI only is

smaller than channel capacity of AWGN
channel with the same average .
Fading reduces capacity with the receiver CSI
only

Transmitter and Receiver

CSI

S: a collection of Discrete Memoryless Channel

states, each state denoted by s (s in S)
p(s) : probability of being in State s
Cs = capacity of channel in state s
C = Blog2(1 + ) is capacity of channel with
average SNR
C C s p( s)
sS

C C p ( )d B log 2 (1 ) p ( )d

Without power adaptation, same capacity as

receiver CSI only

Channels
Transmitter and Receiver
CSI

Power

adaptation policy:
Transmit at higher powers (and
hence data rates) when channel
is good (has high SNR )
P
Transmit power P( ) subject to
average power constraint
CLeads

problem
P ( )

to optimization
p ( )d
B log 2 1

max

P ( ) : E[ P ( )] P

Capacity of Flat-Fading
Channels
Transmitter and Receiver CSI

Optimal Power Allocation

(Power Adaptation)

P( )

P 0
1
0

0
else

Follows a water-filling scheme 0

Waterfilling

Capacity C B log p( )d .
2

0
0

Cutoff threshold 0 depends on fading distribution p()

and is obtained using power constraint formula

Capacity Comparisons

At high SNR water-filling does not provide

much gain

Capacity Comparisons

Water-filling provides significant improvement

at low SNR

Main Points
Capacity

depends on degree of channel

knowledge: CDI only, CSI at receiver
only, CSI at both receiver and
transmitter

Capacity

with TX/RX knowledge:

variable-rate variable-power
transmission (water filling) optimal