Experimental investigation of a dual-band handset MIMO antenna using a spatial fading emulator

There have been a significant number of investigations into handset MIMO antennas applicable for cellular mobile radios [1], [2]. Some measurement apparatuses have been proposed for evaluating MIMOs or diversity arrays for a handset terminal [3], [4]. A spatial fading emulator consists of a number of transmitting antennas in order to reproduce a multipath fading channel in the spatial domain [4]. However, there has been little study of the effectiveness of the emulator in an actual cellular environment. This paper presents the experimental investigation of a dual-band handset MIMO antenna using a spatial fading emulator in a street microcell environment to compare with experimental data of a radio propagation test. Four handset arrays, which included two monopole antennas with dual-band operation, were used for the test, thus permitting the evaluation of 2-by-2 MIMO characteristics. The propagation test was conducted in a central downtown area of Aalborg city in Denmark. Comparison between the measured results obtained by the emulator and the propagation confirmed the effectiveness of the emulator.