Evaluation of antenna diversity performance for mobile handsets using 3-D measurement data

An evaluation of two-branch antenna diversity on mobile telephones is performed in the presence of head and hand phantoms to model the influence of the user. Two mobile telephone prototypes for the 1800-MHz band are considered. The evaluation is done by measuring the three-dimensional (3-D) complex radiation patterns from each antenna with the prototypes positioned near the phantom head and hand (i.e., in talk position) and calculating the diversity performance for three different scenarios of the incoming field. The two-branch antenna setups on both prototypes produce a calculated diversity gain of about 9 dB for selection diversity at the 99% reliability level.