Performance of commercial MIMO access point in distributed antenna system with different fiber lengths

Abstract

In this paper, we experimentally investigate the throughput of IEEE 802.11n 2×2 multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) signals in a radio-over-fiber-based distributed antenna system (DAS) with different fiber links. Both a MIMO-supported access point (AP) and a spatial-diversity-supported AP were separately employed in the experiments. Throughput measurements were carried out with wireless users at different locations in a typical office environment. The results indicate that MIMO signals can maintain high throughput when the fiber length difference between the two remote antenna units (RAUs) is under 100 m and falls quickly when the length difference is greater. For the spatial diversity signals, high throughput can be maintained even when the difference is 150m.