MIMO channel measurements using an experimental MIMO system

With continued standardization of MIMO radio techniques, questions of providing MIMO infrastructure rise. Depending on the environment, the usage of special antennas might be advantageous. In aircraft cabins so called leaky lines are installed for usage with mobile phones, according to the GSM standard. When establishing a point to point link, antennas, which exhibit a directional characteristic might be useful. If MIMO should be provided in a room or office with no predictable placement of terminals, omnidirectional antennas are the best choice. In this paper a measurement campaign is presented, in which an experimental MIMO system is used, with different types of antennas on transmitter side, to evaluate the influence of the usage of different types of antennas on the measured MIMO channel, in terms of capacity, spatial correlation and delay spread. It is found that the influence on the MIMO system of different antenna types is low in terms of the channel capacity.