Patent ID: 8488536

Claim:
A method for transmission mode selection in a MIMO radio system, the selection between a first mode of spatial diversity and a second mode of spatial multiplexing, the method carried out using an electronic processor the method comprising: obtaining a channel condition number; if the channel condition number is above a selected threshold, and a signal to interference plus noise ratio exceeds a predetermined threshold then selecting the mode of spatial multiplexing; and otherwise selecting the mode of spatial diversity; wherein said channel signal to interference plus noise ratio comprises effective Carrier interference noise ratio (ECINR), the method further comprising using Exponential Effective SINR Mapping (EESM) as a metric of said ECINR wherein said EESM metric is calculated from EESM = - β ⁢ ⁢ ln ⁡ [ 1 N ⁢ ∑ n = 1 L ⁢ ∑ k = 1 N ⁢ ⅇ - γ k , n / β ] wherein L is the number of spatial streams at the mobile station (MS) side, N is the number of occupied subcarrier groups, γ k,n is the CINR per subcarrier group computed by a receiving station and β is a matching factor.