  Physical transceiver implementations for multiple-input multiple-output
(MIMO) wireless communication systems suffer from transmit-RF (Tx-RF)
impairments. In this paper, we study the effect on channel capacity and
error-rate performance of residual Tx-RF impairments that defy proper
compensation. In particular, we demonstrate that such residual distortions
severely degrade the performance of (near-)optimum MIMO detection algorithms.
To mitigate this performance loss, we propose an efficient algorithm, which is
based on an i.i.d. Gaussian model for the distortion caused by these
impairments. In order to validate this model, we provide measurement results
based on a 4-stream Tx-RF chain implementation for MIMO orthogonal
frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM).
