Spatial fading emulator for base station using cavity-excited circular array based on ESPAR antenna

In this paper, we propose a spatial fading simulator to evaluate the performance of an array antenna and show its computer simulation results based on parameters verified by experimental data. We introduce a cavity-excited circular array (CECA) as a spatial fading emulator that can simulate realistic mobile communication environments. To evaluate the antenna array, two spatial stochastic characteristics are needed. The first one is the fading phenomenon and the second is the angular spread (AS) of the incident wave. The computer simulation results on the two respects, fading and AS, show that the CECA works well as a spatial fading simulator for evaluation of the performance of an antenna array. We first present the basic structure, features and design methodology of the CECA, and then show computer simulation results on stochastic spatial characteristics with experimental parameters. The results convince us that it is a useful tool to evaluate the performance of an antenna array.