Design of a Flat Fading 4 x 4 MIMO Testbed for Antenna Characterization using a Modular Approach

In this paper a 4 times 4 MIMO channel testbed is proposed that is based on a straightforward and modular design. The proposed testbed is designed explicitly for MIMO antenna testing and characterization and is easily configurable to a variety of needs in terms of frequency band and M times N requirements. The testbed is easily constructed and can be maintained by non-RF specialists. The data received from the testbed are stored on hard disk and post-processed offline to obtain MIMO channel estimates and other useful parameter estimates such as capacity and antenna correlation.