Impact of Scattering Within a Multipath Simulator Antenna Array on the Ricean Fading Distribution Parameters in OTA Testing

In this paper, we investigate the unwanted scattering that exists within the multipath simulator (MPS) array antennas employed in over the air (OTA) testing of mobile terminals. The impact of scattering is evaluated in terms of the measurement uncertainty of the average received power and the Ricean K-factor. The maximum ratio combining diversity is investigated for a generic device under test comprising two half-wavelength dipole antennas. We provide closed-form expressions for the uncertainties of the average received power and the Ricean K-factor for a uniform circular array of MPS antennas and a 2-D uniformly distributed angle-of-arrival spectrum. We also derive the maximum number of MPS antennas and the minimum ring radius of the MPS system as a function of the separation between the most distant antenna elements if the device under test employs a uniform linear array. As a result, we provide design guidelines for MPS array in terms of the number antennas, the radius of the MPS array and the wavelength of the carrier frequency.