Antenna Measurements in Reverberation Chamber Using USRP

Abstract

This paper shows that a universal software radio peripheral (USRP) can be used to measure the complete passive over-the-air (OTA) performance of multiport antennas for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. The passive MIMO OTA measurements are performed in a reverberation chamber using the USRP as a measurement instrument. The total embedded radiation efficiencies, the correlation, and the resulting diversity gain are extracted from transmission measurements only. These are in good agreement with S-parameter measurements (both transmission and reflection) obtained with a vector network analyzer (VNA). The proposed measurement approach involving USRPs provide an economical alternative to these type of measurements as compared to high-end equipment.