The effect of mutual coupling on the capacity of the MIMO cube

The effect of mutual coupling on the capacity of the multiple-input-multiple output (MIMO) cube antenna is demonstrated using numerical simulations. The twelve edges of the cube constitute center-fed electrical dipole antennas. A simple double bouncing scattering model is used to form the MIMO channel matrix. Mutual coupling between the elements that has impact on both the spatial correlation and the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is taken into account using the mutual impedance matrix of the cube. Results of Monte Carlo simulations show that the theoretical capacity due to mutual coupling is lower than without mutual coupling for cube side lengths less than about 0.3λ but the results roughly match those for higher side lengths.