Fading channel models and spatial diversity gains for off-body MIMO in a stairwell.

What is it about?

Testing multiple wearable antennas in a stairwell environment - Most buildings have stairwells; we present fading channel models and examine spatial diversity gains for off-body MIMO systems at 3, 4, and 5 GHz in an indoor stairwell. Additionally we investigate received power, mutual coupling and channel cross-correlation, signal combining modelling, and antenna spatial diversity; the authors believe this is a valuable advancement beyond current knowledge to understand wearable MIMO technology in stairwell environments. Results reveal that 2-branch spatial diversity techniques offer signal gains over individual single channels in the range of 1.7 to 3.3 dB for LOS and 1.8 to 3.4 dB for NLOS for each of the three investigated frequencies, while 3-channel diversity combining appears to offer no significant additional gain over the 2-branch combinations. Furthermore, for NLOS cases the best fit statistical distribution channel models were found to change when spatial diversity was utilized; this highlights mitigated channel fading and increased signal reliability.

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Why is it important?

Stairwells are often overlooked in channel sounding and MIMO diversity combining has not been analysed before; this paper presents results for any future investigators to compare or contrast their work to.