On the Field Emulation Techniques in Over-the-Air Testing: Experimental Throughput Comparison

In this letter, we compare two field emulation techniques, namely plane-wave synthesis (PWS) and prefading signal synthesis (PFS) for multiple-input-multiple-output over-the-air (MIMO OTA) testing of mobile terminals in an anechoic chamber equipped with multiple probes. The comparison is performed in terms of measured throughput. The measurements were performed under urban microcellular scenario of the spatial channel model extended and at Long Term Evolution lower band 20. A practical mobile terminal is used as a test device. The throughput of four different browsing positions of the mobile terminal utilizing both emulation techniques has been measured. Results shows that at a fixed median throughput, the differences of the downlink channel power between the PFS and PWS techniques are small and are in the range of 0.2-1.0 dB for different browsing positions of the mobile terminal. The PWS and PFS techniques are equally capable of emulating the target field inside the test zone and are suitable for the MIMO OTA antenna testing based on anechoic chambers equipped with multiple probes.