A Spatial Fading Emulator for Evaluation of MIMO Antennas in a Cluster Environment

This paper presents a spatial fading emulator for evaluating handset MIMO antennas in a cluster environment. The proposed emulator is based on Clarke’s model and has the ability to control RF signals directly in spatial domain to generate an accurate radio propagation channel model, which includes both uniform and non-uniform angular power spectra (APS) in the horizontal plane. Characteristics of a propagation channel such as fading correlations, eigenvalues and MIMO channel capacities of handset antennas located in the vicinity of the emulator’s ring can be evaluated. The measured results show that the fading emulator with 31 antenna probes is sufficient to evaluate fading correlation and MIMO channel capacity of handset antenna in the case of a narrow APS with the standard deviation of more than 20 degrees. key words: fading emulator, cluster, angular power spectrum, OTA, handset antenna, MIMO, channel capacity

[1]  Tetsuro Imai,et al.  Statistical scattering model in urban propagation environment , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.

[2]  Simon R. Saunders,et al.  Antennas and Propagation for Wireless Communication Systems , 1999 .

[3]  Jun-ichi Takada,et al.  Multipath performance of handset adaptive array antennas in the vicinity of a human operator , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

[4]  K. Rosengren,et al.  A new method to measure radiation efficiency of terminal antennas , 2000, 2000 IEEE-APS Conference on Antennas and Propagation for Wireless Communications (Cat. No.00EX380).

[5]  Jun-ichi Takada,et al.  BER Evaluation System for a Handset Antenna in a Multipath Environment Using a Spatial Fading Emulator , 2005 .

[6]  P. Vainikainen,et al.  Clusters extracted from measured propagation channels in macrocellular environments , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

[7]  E. Bonek,et al.  Directional macro-cell channel characterization from urban measurements , 2000 .

[8]  Stefan M. Moser.  The Fading Number of Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Fading Channels With Memory , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.

[9]  K. Saito,et al.  Theoretical analysis of adequate number of probe antennas in spatial channel emulator for MIMO performance evaluation of mobile terminals , 2010, Proceedings of the Fourth European Conference on Antennas and Propagation.

[10]  A. Ando,et al.  Mean Effective Gain of Mobile Antennas in Line-of-Sight Street Microcells With Low Base Station Antennas , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

[11]  Vittorio Degli-Esposti,et al.  MIMO channel characterization through ray tracing simulation , 2006, 2006 First European Conference on Antennas and Propagation.

[12]  Jong-Gwan Yook,et al.  Path Loss Characteristics for IMT-Advanced Systems in Residential and Street Environments , 2010, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters.

[13]  Yamamoto Atsushi,et al.  A Multipath Measurement System with a Variable Power Angular Spectrum for Handset MIMO Antennas , 2008 .

[14]  Guidelines for evaluation of radio interface technologies for IMT-Advanced , 2008 .

[15]  J. Salo,et al.  An interim channel model for beyond-3G systems: extending the 3GPP spatial channel model (SCM) , 2005, 2005 IEEE 61st Vehicular Technology Conference.

[16]  Christodoulou.  Antennas and Propagation for Wireless Communication , 2006 .

[17]  J. Takada,et al.  Channel capacity of a handset MIMO antenna influenced by the effects of 3D angular spectrum, polarization, and operator , 2006, 2006 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium.

[18]  Hisato Iwai,et al.  Formulation of spatial correlation statistics in Nakagami-Rice fading environments , 2000 .

[19]  Kei Sakaguchi,et al.  Performance Evaluation of Spatial Correlation Characteristics for Handset Antennas Using Spatial Fading Emulator Based on Clarke's Model , 2010, IEICE Trans. Commun..

[20]  K. Araki,et al.  Spatial fading emulator for handset antennas , 2005, 2005 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium.