A Novel MIMO Antenna Evaluation Method for Ad-Hoc-Based Communications Systems

An experimental plane-wave-based method (EPWBM) is extended to use measurement based double-directional channel models in the evaluation of the antennas at 5 GHz frequency range. The method enables a statistical antenna evaluation without performing long routes of radio channel sounder measurements to be carried out separately for the testing of each antenna systems under test. The method enables more comprehensive antenna evaluation in a significantly shorter period of time compared to direct measurements. For validation purposes, the results obtained with the EPWBM are compared with the results of direct radio channel measurements. The method is shown to be sufficiently accurate for comparing the performance of different antenna configurations.