This seminar has two parts. Part 1 is on the capacity issue of MIMO fading channels. No systematic procedure for tightly bounding the average capacity of MIMO correlated Rician fading channels is available in the literature. The difficulty arises from the complicated non-central Wishart distribution of channel sample matrix and the highly nonlinear log determinant operator in the conditional capacity expression. We remove these obstacles by invoking a determinant expansion originally due to Lovitt, constructing a multivariate convex function, and exploiting various statistical properties of the non-central Wishart distribution. The upper and lower bounds so obtained are in simple closed form, easy to be used, superior in tightness, and applicable to branches with arbitrary semi-correlation. The bounds are illustrated with numerical examples.

In part 2, we address the outage issue of optimal combiners. Exact outage probability analysis for optimum combining of arbitrarily faded signals in the presence of correlated Rayleigh faded interferers is not available in the literature. We can show that the conditional probability density of the reciprocal of the instantaneous signal-to-interference ratio (SIR), given the signal vector, can be represented as the higher-order derivative of a simple exponential function in signal power whereby generic formulas for the outage probability and probability density function (pdf) related to SIR can be determined. The new formulas take simple closed form in terms of the characteristic function of the signal vector. They are therefore widely applicable, leading to various results for correlated Rayleigh, Rician, and Nakagami faded signals. Numerical examples are also presented for illustration.

Dr. Q. T. Zhang received the B.Eng. from Tsinghua University, Beijing, and M.Eng. from South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China, both in wireless communications, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. After graduation from McMaster in 1986, he held a research position and Adjunct Assistant Professorship at the same institution. In January 1992, he joined he Spar Aerospace Ltd., Satellite and Communication Systems Division, Montreal, as a Senior Member of Technical Staff. At Spar Aerospace, he participated in the development and manufacturing of the Radar Satellite (Radarsat). He was subsequently involved in the development of the advanced satellite communication systems for the next generation. He joined Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto in 1993 and became a Full Professor in 1999. In1999, he took one-year sabbatical leave at the National University of Singapore, and is now with the City University of Hong Kong. His research interest is on transmission and reception over fading channels with current focus on wireless MIMO and UWB systems. He is presently an Associate Editor for the IEEE Communications Letters.