System-level implications of residual transmit-RF impairments in MIMO systems

Physical implementations of radio-frequency (RF) transceivers are known to suffer from a variety of non-idealities that defy proper compensation. As shown in Studer et al., WSA 2010, such residual transmit-RF (Tx-RF) impairments have a considerable impact on the performance of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication systems, even for high-quality RF chains. In this paper, we analyze the tradeoffs arising from the dependencies of these residual Tx-RF impairments on system parameters, such as the antenna configuration and the transmit power. We find that careful selection of the transmit power (according to the given RF-chain implementation, antenna configuration, and link quality) enables to mitigate the performance loss caused by these distortions already at the transmitter.