Achievable Rates Over Time-Varying Rayleigh Fading Channels

Abstract

This paper investigates achievable rates for a wireless communication system when neither the transmitter nor the receiver has a priori knowledge of the channel state information (CSI). The dynamics of the flat fading channel are characterized by a known Doppler spectrum. Quantitative results are provided for independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) Gaussian signals and long data blocks. Expressions for the achievable rates include a lower bound on mutual information, and the achievable rates of pilot-aided systems with optimized resource allocation. A simple, low-duty-cycle signaling scheme is proposed to improve the information rates in the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime, and the optimal duty cycle is expressed as a function of the fading rate and SNR. It is demonstrated that the resource allocation and duty cycle developed for Gaussian signals can also be applied to systems using other signaling formats.