Performance of closed-loop transmit antenna diversity with channel estimation errors and feedback delay

The effect of feedback delay and channel estimation error on closed-loop transmit diversity (CTD) systems is investigated in time-selective Rayleigh fading channels. Based on a minimum mean square error (MMSE) channel estimator, the variance of the estimation error is formulated in terms of fading index and the number of transmit antennas. A bit error rate (BER) expression for the CTD system is analytically derived as a function of channel estimation error, feedback delay, and fading index. It is shown that the BER performance of the CTD system improves as the length of training symbols increases and/or the frame length decreases. In the CTD system, more accurate channel estimation scheme is required to achieve its full gain as the number of employed transmit antennas increases. It is also found that the CTD system is applicable to the slowly moving channel environments, such as pedestrians, but not for fast moving vehicles.