Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems are designed to enhance the data throughput on a single frequency through exploiting the multipath propagation in an urban environment due to the many buildings and objects acting as what are known as scatterers. Traditionally this has been achieved by spatially separating the antennas at each end in an urban or indoor environment, where as in a more rural or suburban environment where there is a strong line of sight between the transmitter and receiver there is less multipath for MIMO to exploit and other simpler schemes can achieve comparable throughput.
For the land mobile satellite (LMS) channel there is often a strong line of sight with limited multipath. For digital video broadcasting from satellite to handset applications (DVB-SH), the standard does include MIMO, though unlike many conventional MIMO channels it adopts the dual circular polarised channel, which has very specific modelling techniques that have to be applied in this case. Another important usage of such a channel model is to ascertain cases where low effort schemes such as dual circular polarisation multiplexing (DCPM) investigated under Dr Brown's supervision is a better alternative than full MIMO.
Illustration of the land mobile satellite MIMO propagation channel exploiting dual circular polarisation to gain enhanced multiplexing capability
Dr Brown and his colleages have produced world class research outputs with regards to the LMS-MIMO channel and applications as follows:
P. R. King, T. W. C. Brown, A. Kyrgiazos, B. G. Evans, "Empirical-Stochastic LMS-MIMO Channel Model Implementation and Validation", Accepted for Publication in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Publication in 2012. Open access download
F Perez-Fontan, N Moraitis, T W C Brown, I Frigyes, P Horvath, A Abele, R P Cerdeira, "Overview of activities carried out within SatNex on land mobile satellite and satellite to indoor channel modeling", European Conference of Antennas and Propagation, 2009.
U M Ekpe, T W C Brown, B G Evans, "Unleashing the Polarisation Domain for Land Mobile Satellite MIMO Systems", European Conference of Antennas and Propagation, 2009.
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Tim Brown
February 2012