K factor estimation for MIMO multipath channels

Abstract

The channel capacity of a MIMO system depends on a Rician K factor. In the fields of a cognitive radio and link adaptation, it is required to estimate the K factor accurately. This paper proposes K factor estimation for a MIMO multipath channel. The conventional K factor estimation assumes that the MIMO channel is flat fading. Thus, the conventional method cannot estimate the K factor for MIMO multipath channel. In order to improve the estimation accuracy of a K factor, this paper adopts a multipath channel model as a MIMO Channel. In addition, since the proposed method selects high SNR paths, the estimation accuracy is more improved.