We derive bounds on the noncoherent capacity of wide-sense stationary uncorrelated scattering (WSSUS) channels that are selective both in time and frequency, and are underspread, i.e., the product of the channel's delay spread and Doppler spread is small. The underspread assumption is satisfied by virtually all wireless communication channels. For input signals that are peak constrained in time and frequency, we obtain upper and lower bounds on capacity that are explicit in the channel's scattering function, are accurate for a large range of bandwidth, and allow to coarsely identify the capacity-optimal bandwidth as a function of the peak power and the channel's scattering function. We also obtain a closed-form expression for the first-order Taylor series expansion of capacity in the infinite-bandwidth limit, and show that our bounds are tight in the wideband regime. For input signals that are peak constrained in time only (and, hence, allowed to be peaky in frequency), we provide upper and lower bounds on the infinite-bandwidth capacity. Our lower bound is closely related to a result by Viterbi (1967). We find cases where the bounds coincide and, hence, the infinite-bandwidth capacity is characterized exactly. The analysis in this paper is based on a discrete-time discrete-frequency approximation of WSSUS time- and frequency-selective channels. This discretization takes the underspread property of the channel explicitly into account.

Bounds are derived on the noncoherent capacity of a very general class of multiple-input multiple-output fading channels that are selective in time and frequency as well as correlated in space. The bounds apply to peak-constrained inputs; they are explicit in the channel's scattering function, are useful for a large range of bandwidth, and allow one to coarsely identify the capacity-optimal combination of bandwidth and number of transmit antennas. Furthermore, a closed-form expression is obtained for the first-order Taylor series expansion of capacity in the limit of infinite bandwidth. From this expression, it is concluded that in the wideband regime: (i) it is optimal to use only one transmit antenna when the channel is spatially uncorrelated; (ii) rank-one statistical beamforming is optimal if the channel is spatially correlated; and (iii) spatial correlation, be it at the transmitter, the receiver, or both, is beneficial.

This paper presents bounds on the noncoherent capacity of a very general multiple-input multiple-output channel, which allows for selectivity in time and frequency as well as for spatial correlation. The bounds apply to peak-constrained inputs; they are explicit in the channelpsilas scattering function, are useful for a large range of bandwidth, and allow one to coarsely identify the capacity-optimal combination of bandwidth and number of transmit antennas. Furthermore, a closed-form expression is obtained for the first-order Taylor series expansion of capacity in the limit of infinite bandwidth. From this expression, it is concluded that in the wideband regime: (i) it is optimal to use only one transmit antenna when the channel is spatially uncorrelated; (ii) rank-one statistical beamforming is optimal if the channel is spatially correlated; and (iii) spatial correlation, be it at the transmitter, the receiver, or both, is beneficial.

We present results of two indoor ultrawideband channel measurement campaigns in the 2-5 GHz frequency band. In measurement campaign I (MC I), the channel is static and we sample it spatially, while in MCII the transmitting and receiving antennas are fixed and channel variation is induced by people moving in the environment. Transmitter and receiver are separated by up to 27 m in MC I and up to 20 m in MC II. To determine suitable small-scale fading distributions for the tap amplitudes of the discrete-time baseband-equivalent channel impulse response, we use Akaike's information criterion (AIC). Despite the large bandwidth, AIC supports the Rayleigh (MCI) or the Rice distribution (MC II). For data from MC II, we estimate the covariance matrix of the random channel impulse response and demonstrate that the number of corresponding significant eigenvalues, and hence the diversity order of the channel, scales approximately linearly with bandwidth. Contrary to the uncorrected scattering assumption, we find that the channel taps are weakly correlated. The ergodic capacity predicted by the Ricean channel model with parameters estimated from MC II shows good agreement with the ergodic capacity obtained by direct evaluation of the measurement results, while the corresponding outage capacities show a worse fit for low outage probabilities because of shadowing.

We present results of two ultra-wideband (UWB) channel measurement campaigns in the 2-5 GHz frequency band, and use Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) to determine suitable distributions for the channel impulse response taps. Despite the large bandwidth, AIC supports the complex Gaussian tap distribution, with mean depending on the measurement setting. We estimate the empirical covariance matrix of the channel impulse response, and demonstrate that the number of corresponding significant eigenvalues scales approximately linearly with bandwidth, albeit we find that channel taps are correlated

We quantify the impact of coherence on pulse position modulation (PPM) over wideband fading channels by computing achievable rates and an upper bound on uncoded symbol error probability. We study the influence of channel estimation accuracy on the optimum diversity order and furthermore find that a near-optimum receiver typically needs to estimate a few channel taps only