Uniform channel decomposition for MIMO communications

1. A multi-input multi-output (MIMO) communications system for conveying signals over a MIMO channel, the system comprising:

a precoder for precoding a signal based upon a uniform channel decomposition scheme using a precoder matrix, the precoder being configured to generate the precoder matrix by multiplying a first matrix, a second matrix, and a third matrix, the first matrix determined at least in part from a singular value decomposition of a channel matrix corresponding to the MIMO channel, the second matrix having a plurality of diagonal terms, each diagonal term corresponding to a power allocation to a respective one of a plurality of subchannels of the MIMO channel, the third matrix determined at least in part from a geometric mean decomposition of a diagonal matrix; and

a transmitter in communication with the precoder for conveying the precoded signal over a subchannel of the MIMO channel.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the uniform channel decomposition scheme decomposes the MIMO channel into a plurality of subchannels having identical capacities.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the precoder comprises a linear precoder.

4. The system of claim 3 , further comprising a receiver for receiving the precoded signal, and further comprising a detector in communication with the receiver for extracting information content from the received precoded signal.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein the detector comprises a decision feedback equalizer for canceling known interference in the precoded signal after the precoded signal is received by the receiver.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the decision feedback equalizer is a vertical Bell Labs layered space time (VBLAST) detector.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the VBLAST detector is a minimum mean-squared-error (MMSE) VBLAST detector.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the precoder comprises a dirty paper (DP) precoder.

9. The system of claim 8 , further comprising a receiver, a liner equalizer in communication with the receiver, and a DP decoder in communication with the linear equalizer.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the transmitter comprises a MIMO-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmitter.

11. The system of claim 10 , further comprising a receiver having a processor for generating a precoder matrix and conveying the precoder matrix to the processor in communication with the transmitter.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the transmitter comprises at least one of a cellular phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a digital subscriber line (DSL)-based device, and a computing device in which a processor is embedded.

13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the diagonal matrix is determined at least in part from the first matrix and the second matrix.

14. The system of claim 1 , wherein the diagonal matrix is determined at least in part from a plurality of singular values calculated for the channel matrix, the power allocations, and a signal-to-noise ratio of the MIMO channel.

15. A method for conveying signals over a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) channel, the method comprising:

generating a precoder matrix by multiplying a first matrix, a second matrix, and a third matrix, the first matrix determined at least in part from a singular value decomposition of a channel matrix corresponding to the MIMO channel, the second matrix having a plurality of diagonal terms, each diagonal term corresponding to a power allocation to a respective one of a plurality of subchannels of the MIMO channel, the third matrix determined at least in part from a geometric mean decomposition of a diagonal matrix;

precoding a signal based upon a uniform channel decomposition scheme using the precoder matrix; and

transmitting the precoded signal over a subchannel of the MIMO channel.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the signal comprises a symbol vector.

17. The method of claim 15 , further comprising generating a set of nulling vectors for performing sequential nulling and cancellation of known interference on the precoded signal after the signal is received over the MIMO subchannel.

18. A multi-input multi-output (MIMO) communications system, comprising:

a transmitting unit including an array of transmitting antennas and a uniform channel decomposition module for decomposing a MIMO transmission channel into multiple subchannels having equal capacities over which multiple communications signals are conveyed;

wherein the uniform channel decomposition module comprises logic that multiplies a first matrix, a second matrix, and a third matrix, the first matrix determined at least in part from a singular value decomposition of a channel matrix corresponding to the MIMO transmission channel, the second matrix having a plurality of diagonal terms, each diagonal term corresponding to a power allocation to a respective one of a plurality of subchannels of the MIMO channel, the third matrix determined at least in part from a geometric mean decomposition of a diagonal matrix; and

a receiving unit including an array of receiving antennas for receiving the multiple communications signals.

19. The communications system of claim 18 , wherein the receiving unit further comprises a detector for extracting information content from received multiple communications signals.