Initial Characterization of Massive Multi-User MIMO Channels at 2.6 GHz in Indoor and Outdoor Environments

The channel properties have a large influence on user separability in massive multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (massive MIMO) systems. In this paper we present spatio-temporal characteristics obtained from massive MIMO channel measurements at 2.6 GHz. The results are based on data acquired in both indoor and outdoor scenarios where a base station equipped with 64 dual-polarized antenna elements communicates simultaneously with nine single-antenna users. In the outdoor scenarios the base station is placed at two rooftops with different heights and the users are confined to a five-meter diameter circle and move rando mly at pedestrian speeds. In the indoor scenarios, the users are located close to each other in a lecture theater and the base station is placed at various locations in the room. We report on the observed distribution of the delay spreads and angular spreads. Furthermore, the multi-user performance in terms of singular value spread of the MU-MIMO channel is also reported. Finally, statistics of the coherence time and coherence bandwidth of the propagation channel in various scenarios are given. The results are important for the design and analysis of massive MU-MIMO systems, as well as in the development of realistic massive MU-MIMO channel models

Characterization of MIMO channel capacity in urban microcellular environment

The research work in this thesis consists of several investigations of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless channel capacity in urban microcellular environment. The investigations can be categorized into three groups, 1)- model-based investigations, 2)- measurement-based investigations, and 3)- theoretical investigations. Utilizing three dimensional (3D) channel models the influence of environment physical parameters and antenna array configuration on MIMO channel capacity are investigated. In terms of environment influence, parameters such as street width, wall relative permittivity and multipath richness are considered. In terms of antenna array configuration, the effect of array geometry and uniform linear array (ULA) azimuthal orientation are considered. It is shown that the effect of these parameters on MIMO channel capacity is significant. Based on field measurements, the effect of spatial smoothing on the accuracy of a widely used stochastic narrowband MIMO radio channel model, namely, the Kronecker model, and the impact of temporal signal to noise ratio (SNR) variations on MIMO channel capacity are investigated. Results from non-line of sight (NLOS) and line of sight (LOS) propagation scenarios are analyzed. While under NLOS conditions spatial smoothing significantly enhances the applicability of the Kronecker structure, under LOS conditions spatial smoothing does not help to improve the accuracy of the Kronecker model. It is also noticed that while the temporal SNR variation has significant impact on the capacity of MIMO wireless channel in a NLOS propagation scenario, the influence is smaller under LOS conditions. Theoretical investigation of antenna mutual coupling (MC) on the capacity of MIMO wireless channels is presented with particular emphasis on the case of high SNR scenario. It is shown that the effect of MC on MIMO channel capacity can be positive or negative depending on the spatial correlation properties of the propagation environment and the characteristics of the two ends MC matrices. The impact of phase noise (PN) on the accuracy of measured MIMO channel capacity is studied by considering its effect on both the spatial multiplexing gain and the power gain. It is shown that in the case of a low rank physical channel matrix the PN impact is more pronounced on the spatial multiplexing gain than on the power gain. Based on that an eigenvalue filtering (EVF) technique is proposed to improve the accuracy of the measured MIMO channel capacity.reviewe

Tri-Polarized Holographic MIMO Surface in Near-Field: Channel Modeling and Precoding Design

This paper investigates the utilization of triple polarization (TP) for multi-user (MU) holographic multiple-input multi-output surface (HMIMOS) wireless communication systems, targeting capacity boosting and diversity exploitation without enlarging the antenna array sizes. We specifically consider that both the transmitter and receiver are both equipped with an HMIMOS consisting of compact sub-wavelength TP patch antennas within the near-field (NF) regime. To characterize TP MU-HMIMOS systems, a TP NF channel model is constructed using the dyadic Green's function, whose characteristics are leveraged to design two precoding schemes for mitigating the cross-polarization and inter-user interference contributions. Specifically, a user-cluster-based precoding scheme assigns different users to one of three polarizations at the expense of the system's diversity, and a two-layer precoding scheme removes interference using the Gaussian elimination method at a high computational cost. The theoretical correlation analysis for HMIMOS in the NF region is also investigated, revealing that both the spacing of transmit patch antennas and user distance impact transmit correlation factors. Our numerical results show that the users far from transmitting HMIMOS experience higher correlation than those closer within the NF regime, resulting in a lower channel capacity. Meanwhile, in terms of channel capacity, TP HMIMOS can almost achieve 1.25 times gain compared with dual-polarized HMIMOS, and 3 times compared with conventional HMIMOS. In addition, the proposed two-layer precoding scheme combined with two-layer power allocation realizes a higher spectral efficiency than other schemes without sacrificing diversity

Statistical analysis of multipath clustering in an indoor office environment

A parametric directional-based MIMO channel model is presented which takes multipath clustering into account. The directional propagation path parameters include azimuth of arrival (AoA), azimuth of departure (AoD), delay, and power. MIMO measurements are carried out in an indoor office environment using the virtual antenna array method with a vector network analyzer. Propagation paths are extracted using a joint 5D ESPRIT algorithm and are automatically clustered with the K-power-means algorithm. This work focuses on the statistical treatment of the propagation parameters within individual clusters (intracluster statistics) and the change in these parameters from one cluster to another (intercluster statistics). Motivated choices for the statistical distributions of the intracluster and intercluster parameters are made. To validate these choices, the parameters' goodness of fit to the proposed distributions is verified using a number of powerful statistical hypothesis tests. Additionally, parameter correlations are calculated and tested for their significance. Building on the concept of multipath clusters, this paper also provides a new notation of the MIMO channel matrix (named FActorization into a BLock-diagonal Expression or FABLE) which more visibly shows the clustered nature of propagation paths