Mobile communications base station array antenna: characterization of the environment

This paper examines the behavior of an array base station antenna in a real urban environment. Base station array antennas have been proposed by many authors as a means of achieving higher spectral efficiency. Field tests were performed to characterize the fading environment as seen by a multi-element base station antenna. The primary goal of the field tests was to obtain the cross-correlation matrix for the different antenna elements. All the hardware designed and built for the tests is documented, as well as the methods to extract and compile the measured data.