Novel physical probe configurations in a multi-probe based 3D MIMO OTA setup

In this paper, channel spatial characteristics which mainly depend on the spatial correlation are selected as the significant factors in over-the-air (OTA) testing for multiple input multiple output (MIMO) devices. The multi-probe anechoic chamber method, a promising candidate of the MIMO OTA testing methods, can reproduce the multipath environments in a controllable manner. A novel physical configuration based on the variation of relative positions of probes in a MIMO OTA setup is put forward to obtain better spatial characteristics. Two physical configurations are presented to make a comparison with the typical configuration in this paper. The simulation results show that by making a proper probe configuration, good channel simulation accuracy can be achieved. Meanwhile, in order to get better performance of emulating channel spatial characteristics, probes in the first and the last probe rings should be placed symmetrically in three dimensional (3D) physical probe configuration.