The Impact of Antenna Height on 3D Channel: A Ray Launching Based Analysis

Qi Hong,Baoling Zhang,Hui Zheng,Haonan Hu,Zhihua Lai,Hao Li,Jiliang Zhang,Jie Zhang

doi:10.3390/electronics7010002

Qi Hong, Baoling Zhang + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics7010002

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Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) is one of the enabling technologies for next-generation mobile communication. As the elevation angle in the 3D MIMO channel model might vary against the height of the base station (BS) antenna, it should be considered within channel modeling. In this paper, the impact of antenna height on the channel characteristics of the 3D MIMO channel is investigated by using the intelligent ray launching algorithm (IRLA). Three typical street scenarios, i.e., the straight street, the forked road, and the crossroad, are selected as benchmarks. The joint and marginal probability density functions (PDFs) of both the elevation angle of departure (EAoD) and the elevation angle of arrival (EAoA) are obtained through simulations. Moreover, the elevation angle spread (AS) and the elevation delay spread (DS) under various antenna heights are jointly discussed. Simulation results show that the characteristics of the PDFs of EAoD will vary under different street scenarios. It is observed that in order to obtain the maximum or minimum value of the AS and the DS, the BS antenna should be deployed at half of the building height.

Highlights

One common feature of the research works on future wireless communication technologies is the pursuit of high spectral efficiency whilst multiple mobile stations (MSs) access the network
The impact of antenna height on elevation angle of departure (EAoD) and elevation angle of arrival (EAoA) is investigated under typical outdoor scenarios: straight street, fork road, and crossroad
The closed-form expressions of the probability density functions (PDFs) of EAoD and EAoA were derived under various street scenarios, the related angle spread (AS) and delay spread (DS) are presented

Summary

Introduction

One common feature of the research works on future wireless communication technologies is the pursuit of high spectral efficiency whilst multiple mobile stations (MSs) access the network. Multi-user (MU), multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) technology is expected to play a key role to achieve high spectral efficiency [1]. For the conventional study on channel model, linear antenna arrays were employed in the horizontal direction [6,7,8]. This assumption is valid since the distance between the MS and the BS is much larger than the distance between the height of the BS antenna and the scatterers around the MS [9]

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