Measurement based MIMO channel capacity in an urban canyon environment at the 3.7 GHz band

This paper describes the measurements made in an urban canyon environment of a relay network scenario to determine the capacity of the multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) channel. While varying antenna number and spacing, we measure the channel matrices in the 3.7 GHz band using a 4×4 switching MIMO channel sounder. The results show that antenna spacing is shown to have less impact than signal-to-noise (SNR) on MIMO channel capacity in a line-of-sight (LOS) environment when physical antenna spacing is selected at four wavelengths. As a result, in an urban MIMO LOS scenario, a base station can provide sufficient data throughput to relay station because most links from base station to relay station have LOS environment and are free from restriction of antenna spacing.