SAT02-6: Application of the 3D Polarization Concept in Satellite MIMO Systems

In contrast to a plane-wave situation electromagnetic wave polarization is a 3-dimensional phenomenon in multipath scatter environments. Recently there is much research work done in order to utilize this fact in MIMO antennas. E.g. it is shown that with appropriate antenna arrangement increase in capacity can be as much as 4-fold or so in terrestrial rich scattering environments. In this paper satellite systems are investigated from this point of view. It is shown that it is hard to achieve an increase of capacity. However, diversity gain (or order of diversity) can be increased and in principle diversity gain of 6 or more is possible while this gain is at most 4 in the 2D (i.e. plane wave) case.