Effect of Antenna Configuration in Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) Communication System and the Relevance of Electromagnetics in Communication System Design

In this paper, the relevance of electromagnetics has been emphasized for communication system design. Two different antenna configurations have been studied and their effect on the number of modes possible for communication has been carried out by numerical examples. In most cases the mode in a MIMO system that is really effective is the dominant phased array mode as simultaneously the various orthogonal modes from the antennas cannot be combined effectively. The various electromagnetic effects and the mutual coupling between the antennas are taken into account in evaluating the system performance. The total power input in all the simulations is kept constant rather than the radiated power.