Line-of-Sight MIMO Channel in Millimeter-Wave Beamforming System: Modeling and Prototype Results

In this paper, a general channel modeling for beamforming MIMO system in LOS environments is introduced. In order to validate the channel model, prototype hardware that supports 2×2 beamforming MIMO transmission is developed and tested in outdoor LOS environment. This prototype operates at millimeter-wave band, in which occurrence of LOS channel is relatively high compared with the low legacy frequency band due to short wavelength. Numerical evaluation reveals that performance of the beamforming MIMO system in LOS channel is highly dependant on the number of arrays and the spacing between the adjacent arrays. Experimental results shows a good accordance to the numerical results, thereby validating our beamforming MIMO channel model for LOS environments.