The Benefits of Large-Scale Attenuation over the Antenna Array in Massive MIMO Systems

摘要

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is a potential candidate key technology for the fifth generation of wireless communication systems. In previous research, different power loss and shadowing effects on different individual antenna elements have been neglected. When characterizing the channel of a massive MIMO system and investigating the system performance, the large scale attenuation (LSA) over the antenna array has not been previously considered. In this paper, based on our proposed accurate geometrical propagation model, the spectral efficiency (in terms of bits/s/Hz sum-rate) result of maximal ratio combining (MRC) detection is investigated. From the simulation results, we find that the sum-rate performance for the MRC detection of our proposed more realistic channel model exceeds the results using the conventional model (where the LSA effect is not included). This proposed model LSA model is beneficial and informative for the research, design, and evaluation of the next generation of wireless communication systems employing massive MIMO configurations.