This paper describes the measurements made in an urban canyon environment of a relay network scenario to determine the capacity of the multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) channel. While varying antenna number and spacing, we measure the channel matrices in the 3.7 GHz band using a 44 switching MIMO channel sounder. The results show that antenna spacing is shown to have less impact than signal-to-noise (SNR) on MIMO channel capacity in a line-of-sight (LOS) environment when physical antenna spacing is selected at four wavelengths. As a result, in an urban MIMO LOS scenario, a base station can provide sufficient data throughput to relay station because most links from base station to relay station have LOS environment and are free from restriction of antenna spacing.

Modification of ITU-R P.1411 model to enhance the prediction accuracy in urban environments having variable heights of buildings is proposed in this paper by introducing two kinds of novel correction factors. One is considering the relationship of the highest building height and the transmitter (Tx) antenna height, and the other is considering the effect of receiver (Rx) position on crossroads. After introducing two correction factors, the prediction accuracy is shown to be improved.

To improve path loss estimation, a ray tracing method for inhomogeneous building surfaces and its verification are presented in this paper. Considering real building surfaces with many heterogeneous materials, the effective specular reflection based on a physical optics (PO) approximation is modeled and applied to the reflection in a ray tracing method. To verify the proposed method, measurement at 2.7 GHz is performed in a complex urban environment. Comparisons between the measurements and the ray tracing results are made in LOS and NLOS environments.