Interferometer for Measurements of the MIMO Satellite Channel at Ku-Band

We present a novel interferometer for the accurate measurement of the channel transfer matrix of future multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) satellite communication (SATCOM) systems. The capacity of such a SATCOM system heavily depends on the phase relations inside the channel matrix. Above 10 GHz, these phase relations are affected and determined by tropospheric perturbations when the signal passes through the atmosphere. To measure the transfer matrix of the signal phase with sufficient accuracy, the interferometer must provide a fine temporal resolution. The paper shows a low-cost measurement approach at Ku-band with remarkable precision as well as the first results of the measurement campaign.