Full Dimension MIMO (FD-MIMO): Demonstrating Commercial Feasibility

Massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) is shown to significantly increase spectral efficiency by exploiting a large number of antennas to support high-order multiuser MIMO. In 3GPP Release-13, a full-dimension MIMO (FD-MIMO) technology was introduced to address practical aspects for massive MIMO in cellular systems; extensive simulations show 2–4 times capacity gain compared with current LTE systems. FD-MIMO has been identified as one of the key 5G technologies and is being continuously improved in 3GPP new radio standards. However, several practical challenges such as interference mitigation among MIMO streams for a large number of users with limited channel feedback, hardware limitations, such as calibration errors that limit the precoding capabilities need to be addressed carefully. A proof of concept (PoC) base-station and user equipment (UE) prototype has been designed to validate the potential of FD-MIMO technology and demonstrate commercial implementation feasibility. In this paper, we present theory and architecture behind an FD-MIMO prototype and share the field test results with LTE-based UEs in a multi-user MIMO setup. We also analyze the impact of transmitter and receiver calibration errors on the performance of the FD-MIMO system.