Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) communications systems using multiantenna arrays simultaneously during transmission and reception have generated significant interest in recent years. Theoretical work in the mid 1990?s showed the potential for significant capacity increases in wireless channels via spatial multiplexing with sparse antenna arrays and rich scattering environments. However, in reality the capacity is significantly reduced when the antennas are placed close together, or the scattering environment is sparse, causing the signals received by different antennas to become correlated, corresponding to a reduction of the effective number of sub-channels between transmit and receive antennas. By introducing the previously ignored spatial aspects, namely the antenna array geometry and the scattering environment, into a novel channel model new bounds and fundamental limitations to MIMO capacity are derived for spatially constrained, or spatially selective, channels. A theoretically derived capacity saturation point is shown to exist for spatially selective MIMO channels, at which there is no capacity growth with increasing numbers of antennas. Furthermore, it is shown that this saturation point is dependent on the shape, size and orientation of the spatial volumes containing the antenna arrays along with the properties of the scattering environment. This result leads to the definition of an intrinsic capacity between separate spatial volumes in a continuous scattering environment, which is an upper limit to communication between the volumes that can not be increased with increasing numbers of antennas within. It is shown that there exists a fundamental limit to the information theoretic capacity between two continuous volumes in space, where using antenna arrays is simply one choice of implementation of a more general spatial signal processing underlying all wireless communication systems.

This work develops a one dimensional, slab geometry, multigroup collision probability code named Oklo which solves both criticality calculations and fixed source problems. The code uses the classical collision probabilities approach where the first flight collision probabilities are calculated analytically for void, reflected and periodic boundary conditions. The code has been verified against analytical criticality benchmark test sets from Los Alamos National Laboratory, which have been used to verify MCNP amongst other codes. The results from the code show a good agreement with the benchmark test sets for the critical systems presented in this report. The results from the code also match the infinite multiplication factors k and average scalar flux ratios for infinite multiplicative systems from the benchmark test sets. The criticality results and the fixed source results from the Oklo code have been compared with criticality results and fixed source results from a discrete ordinates code and the results for both types of problems show a good agreement with the results from the discrete ordinates code as we increase the N for the discreet ordinates code. / Thesis (M.Sc. Engineering Sciences (Nuclear Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

This work develops a one dimensional, slab geometry, multigroup collision probability code named Oklo which solves both criticality calculations and fixed source problems. The code uses the classical collision probabilities approach where the first flight collision probabilities are calculated analytically for void, reflected and periodic boundary conditions. The code has been verified against analytical criticality benchmark test sets from Los Alamos National Laboratory, which have been used to verify MCNP amongst other codes. The results from the code show a good agreement with the benchmark test sets for the critical systems presented in this report. The results from the code also match the infinite multiplication factors k and average scalar flux ratios for infinite multiplicative systems from the benchmark test sets. The criticality results and the fixed source results from the Oklo code have been compared with criticality results and fixed source results from a discrete ordinates code and the results for both types of problems show a good agreement with the results from the discrete ordinates code as we increase the N for the discreet ordinates code. / Thesis (M.Sc. Engineering Sciences (Nuclear Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.