Performance Evaluation of a MIMO System in Underground Mine Gallery

This letter studies the use of multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems for underground mine communication. Measurement campaigns using directional (patch) and omnidirectional (monopole) antennas have been made in a real gold mine. Furthermore, the channel is characterized in terms of Rician
K
-factor, channel correlation, and capacity. Results suggest that in such a scatter-rich environment, the directional antennas have shown to provide significant suppression of multipath signals and a corresponding increase in the correlation. However, thanks to its higher antenna gain, the patch antennas present better channel capacities.