A model for dual polarized HF MIMO communications

The ionosphere has two modes of propagation, each with a different polarization. Theory and measurements show that the paths associated with these two polarization modes have independent fades. Transmitting and receiving on two co-located orthogonal linear polarized antennas 1) makes the link more robust to fading, 2) removes possibility of polarization loss, 3) can nearly double the data throughput by effectively establishing two links, and 4) is a form of multiple input multiple output communications (MIMO). This paper introduces a simple and flexible model for a dual polarized (DP) HF MIMO channel, illustrates how to develop specific instantiations of the model based on channel measurements, including ionosondes, and presents some performance comparisons between single input single output HF communications and DP HF MIMO. A contribution of this paper is the introduction of this flexible DP HF MIMO channel model that will allow researchers to develop instantiations of HF DP channel models from readily available ionosonde data and determine the performance benefits of HF DP MIMO under a variety of ionospheric propagation conditions and antenna orientations.