Multielement antennas have become a central part of most communication systems, and yet their design and evaluation remain a challenge. A key parameter is the correlation matrix, which relates the antenna patterns and the multipath propagation. The correlation governs communication metrics such as the various capacities, error rates, and outages. Calculation of the correlation matrix requires accurate measurements of the complex far-field patterns of the antennas, and there is a need to verify that both the measurement and the calculation are accurate. An approach is presented for benchmarking the measured correlation accuracy by using a biconical antenna with a closed-form expression for its wideband correlation function. The approach is demonstrated by checking both physical and numerical experiments (simulation) against the theory. It benchmarks the accuracy of both the measurement and calculation stages for the antenna correlation in a rich isotropic multipath propagation environment.

中文翻译：

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天线相关性测量的基准

多元天线已成为大多数通信系统的核心部分，但它们的设计和评估仍然是一个挑战。一个关键参数是相关矩阵，它涉及天线方向图和多径传播。相关性控制通信指标，例如各种容量、错误率和中断。相关矩阵的计算需要对天线的复杂远场方向图进行准确的测量，需要验证测量和计算是否准确。提出了一种方法，通过使用具有封闭形式表达式的双锥天线来对测量的相关精度进行基准测试。通过对照理论检查物理和数值实验（模拟）来证明该方法。