The promise of downlink MU-MIMO for high-capacity next generation mobile broadband networks based on IEEE 802.16 m

The dramatic increase of the demand for mobile broadband services poses stringent requirements on the performance evolution of currently deployed mobile broadband networks, such as Mobile WiMAX Release 1 and 3GPP LTE Release 8. Although the combination of single-user multiple-input multiple-output (SU-MIMO) and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) provide the appropriate technologies for improving the downlink performance of third generation (3G) code division multiple access (CDMA)-based mobile radio systems and, thus, address the current mobile internet requirements, a fundamental paradigm shift is required to cope with the constantly increasing mobile broadband data rate and spectral efficiency requirements. Among the different technologies available for making the paradigm shift from current to next-generation mobile broadband networks, multiuser MIMO (MU-MIMO) constitutes the most promising technology because of its significant performance improvement advantages. In this article, we analyze the performance of MU-MIMO under a multitude of deployment scenarios and system parameters through extensive system-level simulations which are based on widely used system-level evaluation methodologies. The target mobile broadband system used in the simulations is IEEE 802.16 m which was recently adopted by ITU-R as an IMT-Advanced technology along with 3GPP LTE-Advanced. The results provide insights into different aspects of MU-MIMO with respect to system-level performance, parameter sensitivity, and deployment scenarios, and they can be used by the mobile broadband network designer for maximizing the benefits of MU-MIMO in a scenario with specific deployment requirements and goals.