Antenna saturation effects on dense array MIMO capacity

Abstract

We investigate the behaviour of MIMO capacity when the size of the antenna array is constrained. By increasing the number of antennas within a small region in space the antenna array becomes dense and spatial correlation inhibits capacity growth. A theoretically derived antenna saturation point is shown to exist for dense array MIMO systems, at which there is no capacity growth with increasing antenna numbers. We show this saturation point increases linearly with the radius of the region containing the antenna array and is independent of the number of antennas. Show more