Optimal Antenna Selection Designs for Coupled MIMO Systems

We consider the impact of antenna mutual coupling on receive antenna selection systems. Prior work on selection with mutual coupling has not considered the effects of the inactive (i.e., unselected) antenna terminations and spatial noise correlation. In this work, we show that the presence of inactive antennas can profoundly alter system performance when the antennas are strongly coupled. We also propose a new antenna selection technique that seeks to exploit coupling to improve performance. Simulations suggest that the new technique can significantly outperform traditional selection when coupling is present.