Emulation of Realistic Multi-Path Propagation Channels inside an Anechoic Chamber for Antenna Diversity Measurements

Abstract

As antennas are inherently included recommended in Over-The-Air (OTA) testing, it is important to also consider realistic channel models for the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) device performance evaluation. This paper aims to emulate realistic multi-Path propagation channels in terms of angles of arrivals (AoA) and cross-polarization ratio (XPR) with Rayleigh fading, inside an anechoic chamber, for antenna diversity measurements. In this purpose, a practical multi-probe anechoic chamber measurement system (MPAC) with 24 probe antennas (SATIMO SG24) has been used. However, the actual configuration of this system is not able to reproduce realistic channels. Therefore, a new method based on the control of the SG24 probes has been developed. At first time, this method has been validated numerically through the comparison of simulated and analytical AoA probability density distributions. At the second time, the performance of an antenna diversity system inside the SG24 has been performed in terms of the correlation coefficient and diversity gain (DG) using an antenna reference system. Simulated and measurements results have shown a good agreement.