Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. In this paper we present the architecture of the sounder and demonstrate its performance from back to back tests and from measurements of rms delay spread, path loss and MIMO capacity in an indoor and an outdoor environment. For 20 dB threshold, the rms delay spread for 90% of the measured locations is estimated at 1.4 ns and 1 ns for the indoor and outdoor environments, respectively. MIMO capacity close to the iid channel capacity for 2 by 2 configuration is achieved in both environments.

[1] The concept of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) has become a productive area of research in the field of wireless communications with the aim of delivering increased data throughput. However, to date, MIMO research has focused primarily on short-range communications within the VHF, UHF, and SHF bands, and very little research has been conducted toward exploiting MIMO techniques for long-range communications within the HF band. Between September 2007 and September 2008, several experimental campaigns were conducted to investigate the feasibility of applying MIMO techniques within the HF band. The results of measurements over a 255 km path from Durham to Leicester within the United Kingdom are presented in this paper with particular emphasis on the use of heterogeneous antenna arrays at the transmitter and receiver.

Over the last few years, the concept of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) has become a popular area of research in the field of wireless communications with the aim of delivering increased data rates. However, to date, MIMO research has focussed primarily on communications within the VHF, UHF and SHF bands (and above). Very little experimental or modelling research has been conducted in the area of exploiting MIMO techniques within the HF radio band. This paper describes some of the preliminary experimental work that has been carried out in order to investigate the feasibility of implementing MIMO techniques within the HF band.

[1] Measurements have been made over a 255 km radio path between Durham and Leicester in the UK in order to investigate the potential applicability of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) techniques to communications within the HF band. This paper describes the results from experiments in which compact heterogeneous antenna arrays have been employed. The results of these experiments indicate that traditional spaced HF antenna arrays can be replaced by compact, active, heterogeneous arrays in order to achieve the required levels of decorrelation between the various antenna elements. An example case study is also presented which highlights the importance of the variable nature of the ionosphere in the context of HF-MIMO radio links.

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details.