MIMO Communication with Polarization Reconfigurable Antennas

We present and apply a communication model for a multi-polarized multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system. We consider a scenario in which each of the transmit antennas is able to adjust its polarization angle. We leverage a circuit model to describe mutual coupling between the antenna elements. In order to properly model polarization, we account for the antenna co-polarization and cross-polarization gain patterns, array orientation, and channel depolarization. We analyze the optimal polarization angle of each antenna with respect to the achievable rate and investigate the effects of antenna depolarization and mutual coupling on the system. We provide simulation results to demonstrate that optimizing the polarization angle can have a significant impact on the system performance.