ZF detectors over correlated K fading MIMO channels

This paper provides a systematic characterization of Zero-Forcing (ZF) detectors over multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels that experience both small and large-scale fading. In particular, we consider the generic K distribution (Rayleigh/gamma distribution) to model the composite fading fluctuations and also assume the general case of semi-correlated small-scale fading. In the following, novel exact analytical expressions for the achievable sum rate are derived, followed by asymptotic expressions in the high and low Signal-to-Noise ratio (SNR) regimes. In these limiting cases, two common and insightful affine expansions are studied followed by new, closed-form upper and lower bounds on the sum rate that remain tight for all SNRs. In the second part of the paper, we present exact tractable expressions along with first-order expansions for the symbol error rate (SER) and outage probability; we also quantify the performance of ZF detectors in terms of diversity order and array (or coding) gain. The implications of the model parameters on the ZF detector performance are investigated via Monte-Carlo simulations which also validate the theoretical analysis.