Probe Selection Method Based on Context Channel Information for 5G MIMO OTA Testing in Dynamic Channel Environment

The multi-probe anechoic chamber (MPAC) method is widely regarded as the most promising for 5G multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) dynamic channel over-the-air (OTA) testing. However, the probes used in the testing system is varying to reproduce the channel in a laboratory environment, which leads to a dramatic increase in the complexity of probe selection. In this paper, a concept of context channel information is presented based on the variation of angles. And two corresponding probe selection algorithms are proposed to resolve the above problem. These algorithms map the context channel information to the variation of probe locations. Based on the proposed methods, reconstruction of two typical dynamic channel models are performed. Through different indicators like four-dimensional root-mean-square (4D - RMS) error of spatial correlation, four-dimensional power angular spectrum similarity percentage (4D - PSP) and execution time, the improvement in complexity and accuracy of our proposed methods relative to the snapshot-by-snapshot methods are discussed. The simulation results indicate that the proposed methods can accurately reconstruct the channel environment around the device-under-test (DUT) with much lower computational complexity.