Output signal correlation of dual polarized base station antennas in a Rayleigh environment

We have shown that for a /spl plusmn/45/spl deg/ polarised base station antenna the important parameter is the far-field coupling of the fields of the two channels. The cross-polar level alone does not reveal if an antenna is suited for polarization diversity reception. Even when the vertical-horizontal power ratio differs from 1, the far-field coupling still provides valuable insight into the diversity performance. Further, of the two investigated antennas, the aperture coupled patch antenna is seen to be superior to the dipole antenna in terms of lower output correlation.