Telecom Protocol
Testing_Part-45
MIMO Technology
&
Beam-Forming
MIMO stands for ‘Multiple Input, Multiple Output’, and is a form of radio antenna that
increases efficiency by increasing the number of transmitters and receivers.
MIMO technology divides network resources spatially, which are transmitted
simultaneously through multiple antennas.
MIMO technology can be used in LTE and LTE advanced radio networks for improving
network efficiency.
MIMO refers to multiple input multiple output. It basically refers to system having more
than one antenna elements used either to increase system capacity, throughput or
coverage.
Advantages of MIMO
•Higher data rate –with use of multiple Tx and Rx combinations
•Time diversity –a data packet can be transmitted at different time slots
•Frequency diversity –different frequency channels can be used for transmission
•Reduced signal distortion due to multipath phenomenon
•Higher accuracy
MIMO Technology
Disadvantages of MIMO
•System requires higher level of signal processing at transmitter and receiver end.
•Implementation is costly.
Source: Keysight Technologies
Source: https://www.telecomhall.net
MULTI USER MIMO:
MU-MIMO works withbeamformingtechnology to implement simultaneous
communication with multiple terminals.
What Are the Benefits of MU-MIMO?
MU-MIMO can have a positive impact on wireless networks in scenarios where users are
densely distributed, a large amount of concurrent traffic occurs for multiple users, and
terminals are relatively fixed at specific locations, for example, offices, conference
centres, and electronic classrooms (e-classrooms).
Increases network throughput and spectrum utilization.
MU-MIMO can improve the throughput of a wireless network by two to three times
compared with a wireless network using SU-MIMO. MU-MIMO enables more antennas on
an AP to play their roles, thereby providing more space resources and delivering higher
throughput.
Meets requirements of bandwidth-hungry applications such as video services.
MU-MIMO allows multiple terminals to transmit data concurrently, which improves data
transmission efficiency on a wireless network while reducing the waiting time of
terminals in terms of time sequence. Therefore, MU-MIMO can better meet the
requirements of video, audio, and other applications that require high bandwidth and low
latency.
Beam forming is the forming of beam of RF energy. Fundamentally the
electromagnetic wave radiation pattern from a system is focused like a beam from
torch or beam.
Beam forming is an attractive solution for boosting mobile network performance as
it can provide high spectral efficiency which adds a lot more capacity to existing base
station sites.
It also helps in improving the link performance and provides an extended coverage
area. Beam forming has been known since years but was not supported by LTE
specifications in 3GPP release 15. The benefits of beam forming are obtained in
practice with massive MIMO antennas.
Benefits of beamforming
The resultant highly directional transmissions are particularly beneficial with
mmWavetransmissions, which suffer heavily from path loss and do not
propagate well through obstacles such as walls.
Improved Signal-to-Noise Ratios (SNR)
enabled by beamforming
increase signal range for both outdoors indoor coverage
Beamforming’s ability to cancel out or “null”interference