Simulations of a planar array arrangement for automotive Random-LOS OTA testing

We present simulations of near-field plane wave synthesis by a planar array. The focus is on minimization of reference signal errors within the test zone for Random Line-Of-Sight Over-The-Air characterization of wireless devices on cars. The analysis considers the output of the ideal digital threshold receiver model of the device under test as a Probability of Detection curve. The dimensions, the interelement spacings and the number of elements in a planar array comprising Huygens sources are investigated to produce an absolute error less than 0.5 dB

Planar Eleven Antenna as a Wideband MIMO Micro-base Station Antenna

A new low-profile planar eleven antenna is designed as a wideband MIMO antenna for micro-base stations in future wireless communication systems. The design criterion is to minimize both the reflection coefficient and the ratio of the required average received power over the threshold for 95% of the total probability of detection (PoD) in the Rich Isotropic Multipath (RIMP) and random Line-of-Sight (RLOS) scenarios of both one-bit stream and two-bit stream. The design is performed via optimization with a genetic algorithm

Measured Probabilities of Detection for 1- and 2 Bitstreams of 2-port Car-roof Antenna in RIMP and Random-LOS

Autonomous cars will in a near future drive around in cities and on highways. Antennas will then be needed to secure the wireless connection to these cars. To be able to test the antennas we have defined two edge environments: the Random Line-of-Sight (LOS) and the Rich Isotropic Multipath (RIMP). This paper shows a throughput performance comparison between measurements and simulations of a car-roof (shark-fin) antenna mounted on a ground plane in both of these environments. The comparison is done for both one and two bitstreams in a 22 MIMO system. The analysis is based on probability of detection (PoD) curves representing the throughput performance with digital threshold receivers

Antenna Designs Aiming at the Next Generation of Wireless Communication

Millimeter-wave (mm-wave) frequencies have drawn large attention, specically for the fifth generation (5G) of wireless communication, due to their capability to provide high data-rates. However, design and characterization of the antenna system in wireless communication will face new challenges when we move up to higher frequency bands. The small size of the components at higher frequencies will make the integration of the antennas in the system almost inevitable. Therefore, the individual characterization of the antenna can become more challenging compared to the previous generations.This emphasizes the importance of having a reliable, simple and yet meaningful Over-the-Air (OTA) characterization method for the antenna systems. To avoid the complexity of using a variety of propagation environments in the OTA performance characterization, two extreme or edge scenarios for the propagation channels are presented, i.e., the Rich Isotropic Multipath (RIMP) and Random Line-of-Sight (Random-LoS). MIMO efficiency has been defined as a Figure of Merit (FoM), based on the Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) of the received signal, due to the statistical behavior of the signal in both RIMP and Random-LoS. Considering this approach, we have improved the design of a wideband antenna for wireless application based on MIMO efficiency as the FoM of the OTA characterization in a Random-LoS propagation environment. We have shown that the power imbalance and the polarization orthogonality plays major roles determining the 2-bitstream MIMO performance of the antenna in Random-LoS. In addition, a wideband dual-polarized linear array is designed for an OTA Random-LoS measurement set-up for automotive wireless systems. The next generation of wireless communications is extended throughout multiple narrow frequency bands, varying within 20-70 GHz. Providing an individual antenna system for each of these bands may not be feasible in terms of cost, complexity and available physical space. Therefore, Ultra-Wideband (UWB) antenna arrays, coveringmultiple mm-wave frequency bands represent a versatile candidate for these antenna systems. In addition to having wideband characteristics, these antennas should offer an easy integration capability with the active modules. We present a new design of UWB planar arrays for mm-wave applications. The novelty is to propose planar antenna layouts to provide large bandwidth at mm-wave frequencies, using simplified standard PCB manufacturing techniques. The proposed antennas are based on Tightly Coupled Dipole Arrays (TCDAs) concept with integrated feeding network

The Random Line-of-Sight Over-the-Air Measurement System

As our society becomes increasingly connected, a growing number of devices rely on wireless connectivity. The type, use and form factor of these devices range from wearables to entire vehicles. Additionally, the fifth generation of wireless communication (5G) introduces new communication bands, also at higher frequencies. At these millimeter-wave frequencies, large portions of bandwidth are available which are needed in order to increase the data rates.In this scenario, testing and verifying the wireless communication performance has an increasingly important role. In modern devices, testing needs to be performed over-the-air (OTA), as direct conducted measurements to the antenna ports become unfeasible. Moreover, there is still ongoing research to understand how testing should be performed for devices with large form-factors, such as vehicles, as well as for higher frequencies. The proposed methods are mainly based on techniques for mobile phone testing at the current communication bands, i.e., sub-6 GHz. However, scaling and adapting these methods to work for future needs presents challenges. A possible solution to meet the future testing requirements is offered by the following hypothesis: "If a wireless device is tested with good performance in both pure-LOS and RIMP environments, it will also perform well in real-life environments and situations, in a statistical sense". The rich isotropic multipath (RIMP) and the random line-of-sight (random-LOS) are therefore identified as the two representative edge environments for testing. This thesis focuses on the random-LOS environment, and its practical realization to test the wireless performance of different devices. The thesis is divided into three main parts. The first part describes the practical realization of random-LOS OTA measurement setups. Three different setups are presented, a virtual planar array and two reflector antennas. One reflector system is aimed at vehicular testing for frequencies below 6 GHz, while the other targets smaller devices at 28 GHz. The second part of the thesis focuses on numerical and experimental verification of the random-LOS measurement setups. In the verification, numerical simulations and measurements of the test zone variations are compared for the proposed OTA measurement systems.The third and last part focuses on how passive and active measurements can be performed using a random-LOS measurement setup. The measurements demonstrate the application of the designed OTA measurement systems for passive antenna measurements, as well as active 2x2 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) measurements on a complete vehicle

Scaling up virtual MIMO systems

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems are a mature technology that has been incorporated into current wireless broadband standards to improve the channel capacity and link reliability. Nevertheless, due to the continuous increasing demand for wireless data traffic new strategies are to be adopted. Very large MIMO antenna arrays represents a paradigm shift in terms of theory and implementation, where the use of tens or hundreds of antennas provides significant improvements in throughput and radiated energy efficiency compared to single antennas setups. Since design constraints limit the number of usable antennas, virtual systems can be seen as a promising technique due to their ability to mimic and exploit the gains of multi-antenna systems by means of wireless cooperation. Considering these arguments, in this work, energy efficient coding and network design for large virtual MIMO systems are presented. Firstly, a cooperative virtual MIMO (V-MIMO) system that uses a large multi-antenna transmitter and implements compress-and-forward (CF) relay cooperation is investigated. Since constructing a reliable codebook is the most computationally complex task performed by the relay nodes in CF cooperation, reduced complexity quantisation techniques are introduced. The analysis is focused on the block error probability (BLER) and the computational complexity for the uniform scalar quantiser (U-SQ) and the Lloyd-Max algorithm (LM-SQ). Numerical results show that the LM-SQ is simpler to design and can achieve a BLER performance comparable to the optimal vector quantiser. Furthermore, due to its low complexity, U-SQ could be consider particularly suitable for very large wireless systems. Even though very large MIMO systems enhance the spectral efficiency of wireless networks, this comes at the expense of linearly increasing the power consumption due to the use of multiple radio frequency chains to support the antennas. Thus, the energy efficiency and throughput of the cooperative V-MIMO system are analysed and the impact of the imperfect channel state information (CSI) on the system’s performance is studied. Finally, a power allocation algorithm is implemented to reduce the total power consumption. Simulation results show that wireless cooperation between users is more energy efficient than using a high modulation order transmission and that the larger the number of transmit antennas the lower the impact of the imperfect CSI on the system’s performance. Finally, the application of cooperative systems is extended to wireless self-backhauling heterogeneous networks, where the decode-and-forward (DF) protocol is employed to provide a cost-effective and reliable backhaul. The associated trade-offs for a heterogeneous network with inhomogeneous user distributions are investigated through the use of sleeping strategies. Three different policies for switching-off base stations are considered: random, load-based and greedy algorithms. The probability of coverage for the random and load-based sleeping policies is derived. Moreover, an energy efficient base station deployment and operation approach is presented. Numerical results show that the average number of base stations required to support the traffic load at peak-time can be reduced by using the greedy algorithm for base station deployment and that highly clustered networks exhibit a smaller average serving distance and thus, a better probability of coverage