Correlated Receiver Diversity Simulations with R&S®SFU

Receiver diversity improves reception quality by using multiple antennas with a preferably low correlation factor between each other. This results in a more robust handling of multipath signals, since a deep fade will then not affect all received signals at the same time. However, the compact dimensions of handheld devices can introduce unwanted correlation due to their dense antenna spacing. In this case, the popular diversity test setup consisting of several independent transmitters will no longer serve the needs of a realistic simulation, since correlation effects have to be taken into account here. A clever solution is to operate the R&S^®SFU in split-fading mode in combination with a second transmitter. This can be another R&S^®SFU, the R&S^®SFE, the R&S^®SFE100 or the R&S^®SMU200A. In this way, two diversity signals of adjustable correlation for any common broadcast standard are coded in realtime, while their individual multipath profile is precisely specified by the extensive features of the R&S^®SFU fader module.