Spatial correlation in indoor MIMO channels

The paper presents the analysis of spatial correlation in MIMO channels, calculated from data measured in office environments at 5.2 GHz. Results are compared with those from channels generated using a stochastic MIMO channel model and the effect of different comparison metrics is shown. The suitability of the stochastic model under different propagation conditions is also investigated. The performance of the models has been shown to be good under non-line-of-sight (NLOS) propagation, although one model was shown to fail under conditions where the correlation amongst the elements of one array was not independent of the antenna element at the other array. It is shown how situations in which array correlation varies with array element can occur in line-of-sight (LOS) conditions, and how under these extreme circumstances, both stochastic models are unsuitable.