Impact of probe placement error on MIMO OTA test zone performance

Standardization work for MIMO OTA testing methods is currently ongoing, where a multi-probe anechoic chamber based solution is an important candidate. In this paper, the probes located on an OTA ring are used to synthesize a plane wave field in the center of the OTA ring, and the EM field for each probe is obtained using FDTD simulation. This paper investigates the extent to which we can control the field structure inside the test zone where the device under test is located. The focus is on performance deterioration introduced by probe placement error including OTA probe orientation error and location mismatch, which are general non-idealities in practical MIMO OTA test systems.