Design of Switched Antenna Arrays for a 28 GHz Propagation Channel Sounder

A channel sounder is an advanced measurement system to estimate the behavior of wireless propagation channels. In this paper, we present the antenna array design for a 28GHz massive multiple-input multiple-output system, capable of measuring 256×128 dual-polarized channels, including dynamic properties of angular, delay, Doppler, and polarization parameters, respectively. Unique in comparison to other designs at 28 GHz, our approach is based on a switched, dual polarized patch antenna array architectures at both transmit and receive link ends. The interactions between the switch circuitry and the elements is analyzed and the measured radiation characteristics are compared to the simulated counterparts.