Performance characterization of a real-time massive MIMO system with LOS mobile channels

The first measured results for massive multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) performance in a line-of-sight scenario with moderate mobility are presented, with eight users served in real time using a 100-antenna base station at 3.7 GHz. When such a large number of channels dynamically change, the inherent propagation and processing delay has a critical relationship with the rate of change, as the use of outdated channel information can result in severe detection and precoding inaccuracies. For the downlink (DL) in particular, a time-division duplex configuration synonymous with massive MIMO deployments could mean only the uplink (UL) is usable in extreme cases. Therefore, it is of great interest to investigate the impact of mobility on massive MIMO performance and consider ways to combat the potential limitations. In a mobile scenario with moving cars and pedestrians, the massive MIMO channel is sampled across many points in space to build a picture of the overall user orthogonality, and the impact of both azimuth and elevation array configurations are considered. Temporal analysis is also conducted for vehicles moving up to 29 km/h and real-time bit-error rates for both the UL and DL without power control are presented. For a 100-antenna system, it is found that the channel state information update rate requirement may increase by seven times when compared with an eight-antenna system, whilst the power control update rate could be decreased by at least five times relative to a single antenna system.