Proceedings of the 14th European Radar Conference
Applying Antenna Synthesis Methods on a Path
Based MIMO Channel Model for Verification
Tobias Mahler, Thibault Deletoille, Johannes Frey, Jerzy Kowalewski, Thomas Zwick
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute of Radio Frequency Engineering and Electronics (IHE)
Engesserstraße 5, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
Email: tobias.mahler@kit.edu
Abstract—In this paper multiple input multiple output
(MIMO) channel samples are generated by the use of a simple
channel model that allows for arbitrary selection of the propa-
gation paths. The distributions of direction of departure (DOD),
direction of arrival (DOA) and phases and amplitudes can be
selected for each path. The antenna array geometry and the
antenna element radiation patterns are also included and can be
chosen arbitrarily. An antenna synthesis method that is based
on eigenbeamforming is then applied to the simulated channels.
It is the optimal solution of the considered antenna synthesis
problem that maximizes ergodic channel capacity. The resulting
fixed synthesized antenna radiation patterns are evaluated in
terms of their matching effect to the predominant directions
of the transmission channel afterwards. The results show that
the channel model is beneficial for the development of antenna
synthesis methods. It includes all parameters necessary for the
design and evaluation of antenna synthesis methods and still has
a low complexity.
I. I NTRODUCTION
The knowledge about basic channel properties as for in-
stance predominant directions of transmission and reception
can help to achieve design guidelines for mobile multiple an-
tenna systems. This is the goal of antenna synthesis methods.
The results of an antenna synthesis are fixed antenna radiation
patterns that match the statistics of the expected channel as
good as possible. The most important input information for
these methods is the sampled transmission channel.
The channel can be simulated by raytracing methods [1],
that model the wave propagation very well [2]. It is also
possible to get the angular power spectrum (APS) of the
simulated channels that in turn helps to interpret the antenna
synthesis results. But it is tedious to generate channel samples
with arbitrary directions of transmission or reception because
the raytracing relies on three-dimensional scenario maps that
determine the propagation paths and their directions.
Another option is to measure the desired transmission chan-
nels with the help of channel sounders and to apply the
antenna synthesis methods on the measured data [3]. But
it is problematic or even unfeasible to verify the antenna
synthesis results afterwards because of the limited propagation
path resolution that depends on the channel sounder. Most of
the channel measurements only deliver time and frequency
dependent complex transmission coefficients of the channel
that do not resolve each multipath component (MPC) as the
raytracing simulations do. Generating channel samples with
arbitrary MPCs is also impractical with channel measurements.
978-2-87487-049-1 © 2017 EuMA 501
In this paper we present a simple channel model that is able
to generate MIMO channel samples of arbitrary MPCs. It
resolves the DOD and the DOA and the propagation path
phases and amplitudes that together yield the APS. Afterwards
we apply an eigenbeamformer synthesis method to the simu-
lated channels. Hereby we visualize and verify the matching
effect of the synthesized radiation patterns to the transmission
channel under investigation.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section II
introduces the channel model. Afterwards section III summa-
rizes the facts about eigenbeamforming. Then we continue
with an overview of the simulation details in section IV and
the synthesis results in section V. Finally in section VI we
conclude our work.
II. PATH BASED MIMO C HANNEL M ODEL
The MIMO channel model used throughout this paper is
based on the generation of the MPCs that propagate between
the transmitter and the receiver antennas. A sketch of the
model is depicted in Fig. 1. The MIMO channel matrix
H ∈ CN ×M consists of the sum of Np propagation paths
or MPCs:
Np

H= ER (ΩR,p ) · ej·k·AR ·s(ΩR,p ) · αp · ej·ϕp
p=1 (1)
 T
j·k·AT ·
s(ΩT,p )
· e · ET (ΩT,p )
N and M are the numbers of transmitting and receiving
antennas, (·)T denotes the transpose and k = 2π λ is the
wavenumber. αp and ϕp stand for the amplitude and the phase
of the p-th propagation path between the antenna array centers.
ΩT,p and ΩR,p are the angles of departure and arrival of
the p-th propagation path with the cartesian direction vectors
s(ΩT,p ) ∈ R3×1 and s(ΩR,p ) ∈ R3×1 of unit length. Ω =
(θ, ψ) is the merging of elevation angle θ and azimuth angle ψ.
The array geometries are represented by the antenna elements
position matrices AT ∈ RM ×3 and AR ∈ RN ×3 that contain
the corresponding cartesian position vectors aT,m ∈ R3×1 and
aR,n ∈ R3×1 of each antenna element relative to the antenna
array centers. The antenna elements radiation pattern matrices
are also included in the channel model and have a diagonal
structure:
ET (Ω) = diag(eT,1 (Ω), . . . , eT,M (Ω)) ∈ CM ×M
(2)
ER (Ω) = diag(eR,1 (Ω), . . . , eR,N (Ω)) ∈ CN ×N
11–13 Oct 2017, Nuremberg, Germany
 When including single beamforming, i.e. beamforming for a
single transmitter branch and for a single receiver branch, we
get the transmission factor
hBF = bTR · H · bT ∈ C (3)
of the beamformed channel. bT and bT are the beamforming
vectors of the transmitter and of the receiver respectively. For
multiple beamforming we get
HBF = BR · H · BT ∈ CNbf c ×Mbf c (4)
accordingly with the beamforming matrices BT at transmitter
and BR at receiver side. Nbf c and Mbf c are the numbers of
beamformed branches at each side of the link.
III. E IGENBEAMFORMER S YNTHESIS M ETHOD
Since the investigation of MIMO systems [4] [5], optimizing
the transmit strategy with respect to channel capacity (ergodic
or outage) has been an active field of research known as
eigenbeamforming, or precoding on specific channel state
information (CSI), for instance, precoding on mean or cor-
relation CSI at the transmitter [6].
In this section we sum up the main results of eigenbeam-
forming with correlation CSIT and apply them to the antenna
synthesis problem. We consider here a Rayleigh-fading chan-
nel where the transmitter possesses only statistical information
(CDIT, channel distribution information) and the receiver
has perfect CSIR. Following the introduction in [7] and [8]
of the Kronecker model which describes the transmit and
receive correlations as independent elements, [9] and [10]
have derived the optimal transmit strategy which maximizes
ergodic capacity. In the following, we will describe the adopted
model and the corresponding optimal input, using the resulting
beamforming vectors for antenna synthesis. Let the MIMO
channel be described by [11]:
y = Hx + n (5)
where in (5), y is the N × 1 output vector, x is the M × 1
input vector, H is the N × M channel matrix and n is a N × 1
zero-mean Gaussian noise vector with unit variance. We want
to find the optimal input shape which maximizes the ergodic
capacity. Let us define the input covariance matrix Q = E[xx† ]
where (·)† denotes the complex conjugate transpose and E[·]
is the expectation operator. The maximum ergodic capacity is
shown to be [5]:
  
C = max EH log det IN + HQH† (6)
Q;tr(Q)≤P 2 our antenna synthesis problem.
where tr(Q) ≤ P denotes the power constraint (P being
the total transmit power) and Q is hermitian non-negative
semi-definite. We use the Kronecker model to describe the
correlated channel [9] [10] [12]:
1 1
H = RR2 Hw RT2 (7)
where Hw has complex Gaussian i.i.d. entries, and RT and
RR are the transmit and receive correlation matrices (which
are hermitian non-negative semi-definite matrices) obtained
502
by RT = E[H† H] and RR = E[HH† ]. We have then the
following separation property for the complete correlation
matrix:
Rh = E[vec(H)vec(H)† ] = RTT ⊗ RR (8)
where ⊗ denotes the Kronecker product. Such a model de-
scribes the fact that the fading from two transmit antennas j
and k to the same receive antenna p is R∗Tjk and does not
depend on the receive antenna, and vice versa [7] [8].
Under such conditions, when the transmitter knows only
the statistics of the channel, i.e. RT and RR , [10] showed that
the optimal strategy is to transmit proper Gaussian signals x
along the eigenvectors of RT , i.e. the optimal input covariance
matrix has the following shape:
Qopt = UT ΛQ U†T (9)
where ΛQ is diagonal and UT are the eigenvectors of RT :
RT = UT ΛT U†T . (10)
In this work, we used this eigenbeamforming technique un-
der statistical covariance information to perform the antenna
synthesis. The statistical channel information RT and RR
can be obtained through measurements or simulations of the
channel, allowing us to find the optimal beamforming vectors
to be used for antenna synthesis. Indeed, when synthesizing
a fixed antenna radiation pattern for a specific channel type
we can only rely on the statistics of the channel as the
radiation pattern cannot react to instantaneous changes of the
channel. Instantaneous optimization can only be performed
by an adaptive antenna system which changes its radiation
pattern(s) during operation. But in our approach we only focus
on the synthesis of fixed radiation patterns, which decrease the
complexity of the system.
At the transmitter, we use the eigenvectors UT of the transmit
correlation matrix RT . Keeping the notation of (4), we get
BT = UT . At the receiver, we can consider the channel
reciprocity principle to choose the eigenvectors UR of RR
as beamforming vectors: BR = U†R .
We can see that the optimal precoding strategy uses the
statistically preferred eigendirections of the channel. It is
interesting to notice that the receive correlation RR does not
affect the transmit directions UT (but it does affect the power
allocation if we were using it for a usual transmission scheme)
[6] [10]. This allows us to consider the optimal beamforming
vectors at the transmitter and at the receiver independently for
Additionally, it can also be shown that the antenna synthesis
method developed in [3] is in fact equivalent to the eigenbeam-
former method with statistical channel information described
in this paper.
IV. S IMULATION D ETAILS
In this section we use the path based MIMO channel model
that is described in section II to simulate a channel between
a transmitting base station and a receiving mobile station.
Of course we cannot emulate all of the wave propagation
 HBF

Path 1 with Į1 and ij1

ĺ ĺ
s(ȍT,p) s(ȍR,p)
1 1
Path p with Įp and ijp
BT BR
AT AR
ĺ ĺ
Mbfc aT,m aR,n Nbfc

eT,m(ȍ) ST Path Np SR eR,n(ȍ)

Locations of M Element Radiation Directions of Directions of Element Radiation Locations of N
Transmitting Pattern of M Departure (DOD) Arrival (DOA) Pattern of N Receiving
Antennas Tx Antennas of Np Paths of Np Paths Rx Antennas Antennas

Fig. 1. Path based MIMO channel model

effects of such a mobile channel in detail but we choose the gle ball shaped beam according to CT (θ, ψ) = sin(θ) sin(ψ)
available channel parameters of our channel model to resemble pointing at horizon (θ = 90◦ ,ψ = 0◦ ) with 7.7 dBi gain.
such a setup. The simulations are performed for a center The receiver antenna array is a uniform circular array (UCA)
frequency of 2.5 GHz and a total of Ncr = 3000 narrowband with an element distance of λ3 and an additional antenna
channel realizations. Each channel realization has a total of element in the middle of the UCA. It has seven antennas on
Np = 6 propagation paths divided in two path bundles. The the circle and the eighth antenna is in the middle to get N = 8
three paths within a path bundle have correlated DOD at the antenna elements in total. The antenna element radiation
transmitter and correlated DOA at the receiver and have a patterns at the receiver exhibit a doughnut shape according
standard deviation between 1◦ and 5◦ from the main direction to CR (θ, ψ) = sin(θ) with its nulls at zenith (θ = 0◦ ) and
of the bundle. towards ground (θ = 180◦ ) and a gain of 1.7 dBi. Coupling
The stationary base station is assumed to be mounted at an between antenna array elements is not considered.
elevated position and serves a sector of 120◦ in azimuth.
The mobile station is assumed to move through an urban-like V. S YNTHESIS R ESULTS
scenario that causes propagation paths to impinge from the The applied channel model allows direct access to the DOD
whole azimuth range of 360◦ . The scenarios are comparable ΩT and to the DOA ΩR of the propagation paths together
to the measured scenarios in [3]. For these assumptions we with the power transmission factor α2 of each path. Hence
set up a Monte Carlo simulation method with the parameter it is possible to calculate an angular power spectrum (APS).
distibution ranges from Table I. All parameter values are drawn Fig. 2 depicts the incoherent APS of the DOA at the receiver
for all Np paths and for the complete channel simulation of
TABLE I all Ncr channel realizations. It was calculated as the kernel
PARAMETER DISTIBUTION RANGES OF THE CHANNEL SIMULATION density estimation (KDE) with a Gaussian kernel, weighting
Description Parameter Min. value Max. value α2 , estimation bandwidth 0.02 and normalized afterwards.
Path Amplitude αp −119 dB −113 dB
Path Phase ϕp 0 2π
Azimuth DOD ψT −60◦ 60◦
Elevation DOD θT 90◦ 112.5◦
Azimuth DOA ψR 0◦ 360◦
Elevation DOA θR 67.5◦ 90◦

from a uniform distribution and filtered with a Gauss window

of 31 taps after generation to achieve a correlation of adjacent
parameter samples. A more sophisticated channel simulation
based on raytracing together with an application of the antenna
synthesis can be found in [2].
The transmitter antenna array is a uniform linear array (ULA)
with M = 8 elements and an element distance of 3λ. The an- Fig. 2. Incoherent angular power spectrum at the receiver for all simulated
tenna element radiation patterns at the transmitter exhibit a sin- propagation paths

503
The APS reveals that the paths are within the expected DOA
distribution ranges of Table I. The APS distribution exhibits
a global maximum at (θ = 78◦ , ψ = 153◦ ) and several
local maxima in the azimuth range between ψ = 193◦ and
ψ = 268◦ .
Fig. 3 shows the first two radiation patterns that were syn-
thesized with the eigenbeamformer method described in sec-
tion III. The first pattern C1 (θ, ψ) has its main beam direction
Fig. 3. Directivities of synthesized radiation patterns C1 (θ, ψ) and C2 (θ, ψ)
at (θ = 88◦ , ψ = 152◦ ) and 10.1 dBi directivity and the second
pattern C2 (θ, ψ) has its main beam direction at (θ = 90◦ ,
ψ = 218◦ ) and 9.8 dBi directivity. When comparing the two
synthesized radiation patterns C1 (θ, ψ) and C2 (θ, ψ) we note a
complementary occurrence of main beam directions and nulls.
This is induced by the orthogonality of the eigendecomposition
included in the eigenbeamformer.
VI. C ONCLUSION
The proposed channel model allows to choose the MPCs
arbitrarily by feeding the path parameters with the corre-
sponding distributions. That leads to channel simulations that
do not reproduce the reality of wave propagation as detailed
as e.g. a channel simulation based on raytracing, but at the
same time it keeps simulation complexity at a minimum and
allows arbitrary DOD and DOA distributions for testing and
analyzing. This is beneficial for the development and design
of antenna synthesis methods. Furthermore it could be shown
that the proposed channel model is very well suited to visualize
and analyze the spatial channel matching effects of the antenna
synthesis procedure.
The synthesis results presented in this paper depend on the
exemplary channel parameters used for simulation and are not
considered to match a mobile channel in general. The path
based MIMO channel model rather serves as a testbed for
the development of antenna synthesis methods. These methods
504
can afterwards be applied to more complex channel models or
channel measurements to achieve antenna synthesis results for
specific MIMO antenna design problems.
The eigenbeamformer synthesis method was applied to the
simulated channels. It is the optimal solution of the con-
sidered antenna synthesis problem that maximizes ergodic
channel capacity. It matches fixed antenna radiation patterns
to the channel when relying on the assumption of statistical
channel knowledge. The synthesis results proved to cover the
maximum regions of the APS very well with the resulting
fixed synthesized radiation patterns. That verifies the matching
of the synthesized radiation patterns to the channels under
investigation that omnidirectional radiation patterns of mobile
antennas do not possess.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the German Research
Foundation (DFG) for funding this work in the context of the
project OASE.
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