Mimo channel capacity measurements

Abstract

The channel capacity in the multi-antenna architecture depends not only on signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) but also the spatial correlation between antenna elements. In this study, in multi-antenna systems, measurements were made for 0.02λ receiving antenna spacing in a laboratory consisting of a full anechoic room, and the spatial correlation between far-field signals and the channel capacity was observed. We used the ray tracing method for the radio propagation channel modeling during this study. The test results showed high level of correlation between received signals in cases where one and two beams were effective as reflections even though the distance between the antennas was bigger than the wavelength. Furthermore, we observed that the channel capacity increased as the correlation between sub-channels increased.