MIMO Testing Solutions

SATIMO is proud to present StarMIMO, a line of measurement systems for testing MIMO performances of next generation wireless devices.

1. MIMO Testing: A New Challenge

With the recent mobile data market take-off, achieving the best throughput from rare frequency bands is a necessity. The data throughput of mobile and other wireless terminals is highly affected by fading, due to multi-path propagation in both urban and indoor environments. Multiple-input and multiple-output, or MIMO, is the use of multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver to improve communication performance.

This is done by combining signals received by more antennas in the wireless terminal. It achieves higher spectral efﬁciency (more bits per second per hertz of bandwidth) and link reliability or diversity (reduced fading). Hence, MIMO offers signiﬁcant increases in data throughput and link range without additional bandwidth or transmit power.

MIMO wireless devices are key to LTE and 4G mobile broadband adoption but their testing represents a new challenge for the Telecommunications industry: In the past, characterizing the device was considered enough; now, with new multiple antennas, testing and optimizing a device means characterizing its end-to-end reception performance in cluttered environments that simulate real RF environments.

Due to the complexity of multiple antenna setups, a ﬂexible and fast testing solution becomes a major asset in the antenna design cycle and ﬁnal testing.

2. Fast and ﬂexible solutions based on SATIMO’s multi-probe technology

SATIMO MIMO testing solutions use a circular, multi-probe arch, paired with an ampliﬁcation unit, a MV-Cal^TM calibration unit, a Spatial Channel Emulator (SCE) and a radio communication tester. With its MV-Cal^TM unit, SATIMO drastically reduces the calibration time required for MIMO measurements. Flexibility is created by the selection of 4 to 32 dual polarized probes to form clusters of direct signals, scatterers and interferers.

3. Control RF Environments for Mobile Terminal Testing

SATIMO MIMO solutions create a fully-operational Spatial Fading Emulator (SFE), allowing emulating speciﬁc environments at the wireless device location. A probe or a cluster of probes can be used to represent the direct signal; other probe clusters can stand for multi-path signals or interferers so that more than just uniform models can be set. Efﬁcient end-to-end testing of the wireless device, including its antenna conﬁgurations, receiver, digital signal processing (DSP) and software, can be performed in a controlled realistic environment.

Main Features

Evaluation of RX Diversity based handsets
Evaluation of MIMO performances of LTE and WiMAX based handsets
Emulation of widely standardized (3GPP) Channel Propagation Models in a controlled environment:

          - Single Cluster
          - Multiple Cluster
          - Uniform

Emulation of variable angles of arrival, angular spread, Cross Polar Ratio (XPR), Doppler and delay spread
Device throughput measurement in controlled fading environments, channel capacity and Bit Error Rate
Antenna parameter characterization such as correlation and diversity gain

Products

Product	Main features	Description
StarMIMO-H	Stand alone horizontal arch Evaluation of RX Diversity based handsets Evaluation of MIMO performances of LTE and WiMAX based handsets Emu...	Easy implementation makes StarMIMO-H the perfect tool for dedicated MIMO testing. StarMIMO-H uses a circular, horizontal, multi-probe arch, paired with an ampliﬁcation unit, a MV-Cal calibration unit, a Spatial Channel Emulator and a radio...
StarMIMO-HU	Circular, multi-probe horizontal arch mounted to your existing vertical one Evaluation of RX Diversity based handsets Evaluation of MIMO performances o...	StarMIMO-HU is the perfect upgrade, bringing MIMO testing capabilities to your SG system at minimum cost. The vertical array can still be used for traditional antenna radiation patterns as well as Single Input Single Output (SISO) OTA measurements.
StarMIMO-V	Circular multi-probe vertical arch Evaluation of RX Diversity based handsets Evaluation of MIMO performances of LTE and WiMAX based handsets...	StarMIMO-V represents an All-in-One testing solution with an optimized cost and space trade-off. An interleaved array can be added as an option for traditional antenna radiation patterns as well as Single Input Single Output (SISO) OTA measurements.