On quasi-orthogonal space-time block codes for dual-polarized MIMO channels

As a space and cost-efficient antenna configuration, dual-polarized antennas are widely deployed in real field MIMO wireless communication systems. The Quasi-Orthogonal Space-Time Code (QOSTBC), due to its advantages in the transmission rate and the decoding complexity, is an important transmit diversity scheme for more than 2 transmit antennas. In this paper, we investigate the performance of QOSTBC for dual-polarized MIMO channels. We show that when QOSTBC is used with dual-polarized antennas, we need to connect the power amplifier (PA) outputs to the differently polarized antennas carefully, in order to avoid more than 1dB performance loss at high cross-polar discrimination (XPD). Also, we show that, if the QOSTBC with constellation rotations, which achieves full diversity in uni-polarized MIMO channels, is used, the performance loss due to the bad PA to antenna connections is mitigated. However, when the XPD is high, the QOSTBC without full diversity, if connected properly, can achieve better performance than the QOSTBC with full diversity but connected badly, which shows the importance of proper connection at high XPD. So, to guarantee robust performance of QOSTBC at any XPD, besides designing codes to have full diversity and good diversity product, connecting properly between the PA outputs to the antennas is also important.