Adaptive polarization transmission of OFDM signals in channels with polarization mode dispersion and polarization-dependent loss

A 2x2 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) architecture using dual-polarized antennas (DPAs) is considered with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). The performance of DPAs is evaluated for adaptive polarization (AP) transmission techniques in time-varying multipath channels impaired by polarization mode dispersion (PMD) and polarization-dependent loss (PDL). AP transmission techniques considered include power gain maximization, polarization dispersion minimization for interference avoidance, polarization multiplexing with waterfilling, and a suboptimal multiplexing strategy that enables direct recovery of the polarization multiplexed streams, thereby simplifying the design of the receiver. Measured time-varying dual-polarized channel realizations from mobile-to-mobile experiments are used to estimate the capacity, diversity, and interference avoidance performance of the adaptive approaches.