Impact of Probe Configurations on Maximum of Test Volume Size in 3D MIMO OTA Testing

Abstract

With the development of multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technology, the over-the-air (OTA) testing of MIMO capable devices with different sizes needs to be conducted for performance evaluation. The device under test (DUT) should be within a tridimensional test volume created by multiprobe configurations. Thus, determining the maximum size of test volume could be vital to test the DUT of different size and larger test volumes should be adopted to evaluate larger DUTs. All types of probe configurations including the fixed and the flexible probe configurations are investigated in this paper to address this issue. The maximum of test volume size (MTVS) is determined within the given error threshold of spatial correlation for a given probe configuration. Simultaneously, the impact of different probe configurations on MTVS is studied in order to obtain larger MTVSs. Simulation results show that larger MTVSs can be obtained by utilizing the optimal probe configuration with any given 3D channel model for 3D MIMO OTA testing.