Effects of Path Visibility on Urban MIMO Systems

Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) wireless communication technology is expected to improve the channel capacity over the limited bandwidth of existing networks. Since, urban MIMO systems have complex propagation characteristics, the channel capacity cannot be estimated using a simple method. Hence, the authors introduce channel capacity characteristics to urban MIMO systems by using a combination of imaging and ray-launching methods as a ray-tracing scheme. A simulation based on these methods with variable parameters can reproducibly estimate various urban propagation characteristics and discriminate the effects of the urban model and antenna configurations.