A Fast Rotating-Mirror Sounder for Dynamic Millimeter-Wave Channel Characterization

A deep understanding of double-directional wireless channels is imperative for wireless system design. This necessitates the development of precise channel models through channel sounding. Given the dynamic nature of wireless channels, a short measurement time is highly desirable. In this paper, we present and validate a dual-polarized millimeter-wave channel sounder that uses a rotating mirror mechanism. This enables quick sweep of the azimuthal plane to capture spatial channel characteristics at 27.5-28.5 GHz in less than a second. This is radically faster than conventional virtual-array channel sounders. Following a detailed discussion of the sounder implementation and the rotating mirror concept, we present an indoor verification measurement scenario. The results demonstrate several discernible propagation paths with parameters that agree with the actual geometry of the indoor measurement environment.