A nonstationary wideband MIMO channel model for high-mobility intelligent transportation systems

The recent development of high-speed trains (HSTs), as a high-mobility intelligent transportation system, and the growing demands of broad-band services for HST users, introduce new challenges to wireless communication systems for HSTs. The deployment of mobile relay stations on top of the train carriages is one of the promising solutions for HST wireless systems. For a proper design and evaluation of HST wireless communication systems, we need accurate channel models that can mimic the underlying channel characteristics for different HST scenarios. In this paper, a novel nonstationary geometry-based stochastic model (GBSM) is proposed for wideband multiple-input multiple-output HST channels in rural macrocell scenarios. The corresponding simulation model is then developed with angle parameters calculated by the modified method of equal areas. Both channel models can also be used to model nonstationary vehicle-to-infrastructure channels in vehicular communication networks. The system functions and statistical properties of the proposed channel models are investigated based on a theoretical framework that describes nonstationary channels. Numerical and simulation results demonstrate that the proposed channel models have the capability to characterize the nonstationarity of HST channels. The statistical properties of the simulation model, verified by the simulation results, can match those of the proposed theoretical GBSM. An excellent agreement is achieved between the stationary intervals of the proposed simulation model and those of relevant measurement data, demonstrating the utility of the proposed channel models.