MIMO system design and field tests for terminals with confined space - impact on automotive communication

For automotive applications car to infrastructure wireless communications enable delivering infotainment services such as location based information, voice calls and video streaming. Those services require a reliable high data rate connection which could be provided by cellular LTE which supports channel adaptive MIMO transmission. However, at the automotive side, confined space is available to accommodate the antennas which gives rise to spatial correlation and mobility introduces uncertainty about the wireless channel which governs a future transmission and hence limits the adaptation accuracy. Both effects carry a high potential to decrease the data rate. This work presents field trial results for spatial correlation and assesses the impact of both effects. The results indicate that the performance loss due to mobility can significantly exceed the loss due to spatial correlation.