On the channel capacity in MIMO systems for aeronautical channels

This paper investigates the capacity behavior in an aeronautical MIMO link between a terrestrial transmitting station and an airborne station. The channel model is small-area and considers only the scattering function. For this purpose, two different scenarios are simulated and analyzed. In the first one, only reflected scattered paths are considered and the second scenario adds a line of sight (LOS) component. The channel effect on the capacity and the capacity variation due to antenna rotation during flight are the main topics investigated. To enhance the channel capacity, the direct paths must be decorrelated by either a space-time coding or by polarization diversity.