Throughput Multiplexing Efficiency for High-Order Handset MIMO Antennas

In multipath environments, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) terminals typically suffer from non-zero correlations due to limited handset space and power imbalances due to different antenna efficiencies or partial hand blockage. These antenna–channel impairments can lead to significant throughput performance degradation of MIMO terminals. The multiplexing efficiency was proposed to quantitatively assess this performance degradation. Previous work only derived the analytical expression of the throughput-based multiplexing efficiency of two-port MIMO antennas for user equipment (UE). However, the fifth-generation (5G) UE dictates four or more antennas. In this paper, we extend the multiplexing efficiency metric to high-order MIMO UEs. Both correlation-based channel models and geometry-based stochastic channel models were used for validation. Besides dipole antennas, two representative terminal antennas were also employed for simulation verifications in this work.