Symbol-wavelength MMSE gain in a multi-antenna UWB system

Ultra wideband (UWB) technology has the potential to provide high speed data services. These speeds can be greatly increased by using multiple input multiple output (MIMO) techniques. Multiple antennas are used to achieve spatial diversity and these antenna elements must be separated properly to have uncorrelated communication signals. The separation can be on the scale of a symbol wavelength ([speed of light]/[symbol rate]). We have designed a printed circular disc monopole and measured the UWB radio channel. Finally, we used the measurements to show the minimum mean squared error (MMSE) performance gain which occurs when the receiver antennas are separated on the scale of a symbol wavelength.