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A method of estimating spatial degrees of freedom (DoF) from measured multipath propagation channels in the multiple-input single-output regime is presented. The DoF of the multipath channels on the transmit (Tx) side is derived by means of the spherical-wave expansion of electromagnetic fields radiated from a Tx antenna array having a certain aperture size. The DoF estimates are independent of particular realization of antenna elements on the Tx aperture. For a given aperture size, the DoF provides the number of the Tx antenna elements for efficient improvement of the system performance by utilizing the spatial diversity. Having confirmed the soundness of our DoF estimation method by channel measurements in an anechoic chamber, the DoF of indoor multipath channels is analyzed. The DoF on the Tx side of the considered multipath channels reveals larger values when the antenna aperture size is increased at a fixed frequency, and when the frequency increases for a fixed antenna aperture size. For a fixed frequency, increasing the antenna aperture size is more effective in observing extra DoF in the obstructed and non-line-of-sight channels than in the line-of-sight channels. Furthermore, for a fixed antenna aperture size, the use of the higher frequency brings larger DoFs in many propagation scenarios. The results also show that electrically smaller antennas are more efficient in observing the DoF. Finally, the solid angle of multipath is derived as a Tx antenna-independent metric of the multipath richness. It is defined as an angular range of dominant multipath clusters subtended on a unit sphere. Our analysis method is extendable to the multiple-input multiple-output regime in a straightforward manner. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Antenna array configurations have significant influence on the radiometric sensitivity of aperture synthesis microwave radiometers. In this paper, we propose a minimum degradation array (MDA) for optimum sensitivity. First, the degradation factor (DF) is defined to characterize the effect of redundant spatial frequency samples formed by an array on the sensitivity. Aiming at minimizing DF, a simulated annealing (SA) based method is proposed to search for an MDA, which, combining with a concept of augmented maximum baseline (CAMB), can effectively locate the true global minimum of DF. Numerical results validate the effectiveness of the proposed method as well as CAMB in optimizing DF. Further, the lower bound of DF is discussed. Finally, simulation and experiment results demonstrate that the proposed method as well as CAMB is of significance in achieving optimum sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]