Indoor MIMO channel measurements for evaluation of effectiveness of array antenna configurations

Recent research has been done on the influence of the array antenna configuration on a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) communication system. In this paper, we present the results from a measurement experiment conducted in an indoor propagation environment, one chosen to represent the typical office environment. The IST-METRA channel model was used for data analysis. In the experiment, a variety of array configurations were used and their effects on the channel capacities were investigated. Based on the results, the channel model, which considers the spatial correlation at both ends of the link separately, is found to be fairly accurate. A criterion to evaluate both the correlation and the mean effective gains (MEG) of the antenna elements was proposed and supported by measurement data.