Characterisation of MIMO radio propagation channels

Abstract

Due to the incessant requirement for higher performance radio systems, wireless designers have been constantly seeking ways to improve spectrum efficiency, link reliability, service quality, and radio network coverage. During the past few years, space-time technology which employs multiple antennas along with suitable signalling schemes and receiver architectures has been seen as a powerful tool for the implementation of the aforementioned requirements. In particular, the concept of communications via Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) links has emerged as one of the major contending ideas for next generation ad-hoc and cellular systems. This is inherently due to the capacities expected when multiple antennas are employed at both ends of the radio link. Such a mobile radio propagation channel constitutes a MIMO system. Multiple antenna technologies and in particular MIMO signalling are envisaged for a number of standards such as the next generation of Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technology known as 802.1 ln and the development of the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) project, such as the 802.16e. For the efficient design, performance evaluation and deployment of such multiple antenna (space-time) systems, it becomes increasingly important to understand the characteristics of the spatial radio channel. This criterion has led to the development of new sounding systems, which can measure both spatial and temporal channel information. In this thesis, a novel semi-sequential wideband MIMO sounder is presented, which is suitable for high-resolution radio channel measurements. The sounder produces a frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) or chirp signal with variable bandwidth, centre frequency and waveform repetition rate. It has programmable bandwidth up to 300 MHz and waveform repetition rates up to 300 Hz, and could be used to measure conventional high- resolution delay/Doppler information as well as spatial channel information such as Direction of Arrival (DOA) and Direction of Departure (DOD). Notably the knowledge of the angular information at the link ends could be used to properly design and develop systems such as smart antennas. This thesis examines the theory of multiple antenna propagation channels, the sounding architecture required for the measurement of such spatial channel information and the signal processing which is used to quantify and analyse such measurement data. Over 700 measurement files were collected corresponding to over 175,000 impulse responses with different sounder and antenna array configurations. These included measurements in the Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems Frequency Division Duplex (UMTS-FDD) uplink band, the 2.25 GHz and 5.8 GHz bands allocated for studio broadcast MIMO video links, and the 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz ISM bands allocated for Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) activity as well as for a wide range of future systems defined in the WiMAX project. The measurements were collected predominantly for indoor and some outdoor multiple antenna channels using sounding signals with 60 MHz, 96 MHz and 240 MHz bandwidth. A wide range of different MIMO antenna array configurations are examined in this thesis with varying space, time and frequency resolutions. Measurements can be generally subdivided into three main categories, namely measurements at different locations in the environment (static), measurements while moving at regular intervals step by step (spatial), and measurements while the receiver (or transmitter) is on the move (dynamic). High-scattering as well as time-varying MIMO channels are examined for different antenna array structures.