Beamspace-Domain Analysis of Single-RF Front-End MIMO Systems

It is known that the remarkable implementation complexity of multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) architectures limits their wide application to modern communication systems. To facilitate the inclusion of MIMO transceivers in devices with strict cost and size constraints, this paper presents a MIMO scheme built on a single-radio-frequency (RF) chain that uses parasitic antenna structures. After presenting the radiation characteristics of such antennas at the beamspace domain, the functionality and the performance evaluation of the proposed single-RF MIMO architecture is illustrated in detail.