Design Method for Capacity Enhancement of Pattern-Reconfigurable MIMO Vehicular Antennas

This letter presents a novel design and evaluation procedure for capacity-enhancing multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) antenna systems for mobile communication. Based on channel simulations, optimized patterns are defined prior to an antenna design. A multiple-antenna system is proposed, which switches between patterns covering desired directions. This antenna system is then evaluated in an urban environment at 2.49 GHz based on 2 × 2 MIMO channel simulation and measurement results. An improvement of the channel capacity exceeding 1 b/s/Hz compared to an omnidirectional antenna system is confirmed by both simulation and measurement.