Challenges for the Automotive Industry on MIMO OTA Testing

The evolution of cellular communication technologies has been replicated by the automotive industry with modern vehicles being almost universally fitted, as a bare minimum, with a radio system, a cellular communication system and Bluetooth capability. Higher end vehicles have additional capabilities such as WiFi, GNSS, TPMS, smart keyless entry and smart start/stop feature. All these systems are highly integrated as part of the vehicle's infotainment unit and they must operate satisfactorily in a co-existing manner. Automotive wireless testing is currently facing several challenging aspects with one such aspect being MIMO OTA (Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output Over-the-Air) testing of the terrestrial cellular communication system of the vehicle. In this paper, we will examine the current approach for MIMO OTA testing in the 4G and 5G cellular environments and discuss various scenarios on how existing techniques can be adapted to support MIMO OTA testing in the automotive industry.