Envelope Correlation Coefficient for Multiple MIMO Antennas of Mobile Terminals

This paper introduces a new figure of merit called envelope correlation coefficient for multiple MIMO antennas (ECC-M) for mobile terminals working in a Rayleigh fading channel. The figure of merit is proved to be effective to reflect the impact of the radiation properties of an antenna array to the system channel capacity. The correlation of the ECC-M to the channel capacity of a MIMO system is demonstrated by simulating the channel capacity of four realistic MIMO antenna arrays using Monte-Carlo method. The proposed ECC-M can be used to evaluate the impact of a MIMO antenna array with more than two elements to the data throughput.