Parasitic antenna arrays: The antenna perspective

Abstract

This chapter provides the parasitic antenna dimension as an enabler of MIMO transmission, showing how antenna design, RF engineering, and MIMO processing can be used in parallel in order to achieve such a challenging goal. The main mechanism of creating beam patterns in the analogue domain with a single active and multiple parasitic antennas is described, as well as the associated methods to control the generated beams/waves. The dependence between beam-shaping and MIMO transmission for transmit diversity is presented, paving the way for MIMO transmission via parasitic antenna arrays. The relationship of parasitic array MIMO to conventional MIMO is also introduced, revealing fundamental similarities despite the differing approaches.