Test zone characterization for the multiprobe anechoic chamber setup (MPAC)

The multi-probe anechoic chamber measurement methodology (MPAC) for quantifying the MIMO OTA performances of multiple antennas wireless terminals is described in [1-2-3-4] and is designed for emulating the spatial characteristics of the propagation models defined in [5]. This testing methodology has been currently the only approved by CTIA for measuring radiated performances of MIMO (TM3) wireless terminals [6]. After providing some background of the MPAC setup, this paper defines the test zone measurement procedures and provides preliminary results of the test zone characterization done on a MPAC equipped with eight dual polarized antenna in a multi cluster configuration. The spatial correlation characteristic of the SCME UMi, and UMa models tends to diverge from the theoretical value when at 0.8lambda from the center. The presented results show how the measured correlation compares with the theoretical and simulated spatial correlation curves beyond 0.8lambda. The testing campaign has been performed at 2.7GHz (LTE BAND7) since it is the highest frequency band for LTE MIMO and hence represents the most challenging frequency in terms of the test zone size.