3D Antenna array for multi-user massive MIMO system to minimize unfavorable propagation

Abstract

Unfavorable propagation in massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems is an underlying channel condition that reduces the gains offered by the system in terms of parallel channels. This paper presents a study on different types of antenna array configurations at base station (BS) to minimize unfavorable propagation conditions. Unfavorable propagation results in increased correlation between channel vectors of two or more mobile terminals (MTs) which arises when the signals from two or more MTs have small angular separation and small angular spread. The study starts with the investigation of the conventional uniform linear array (ULA) under different propagation conditions using a geometrical channel model based on a single cluster of scatterers per MT to quantify the performance degradation in unfavorable propagation. Subsequently, the performance of other types of array geometries is investigated. A custom cluster-based geometrical channel model is used in this study which includes practical propagation aspects like multipath fading, shadow fading, and the effect of BS height. Further, the study considers two cases: micro-cell and macro-cell. Under space constraint settings in terms of the maximum dimension of the array, the proposed technique uses randomized antenna locations in the array to minimize the effect of unfavorable propagation. Based on the results on performance parameters like user correlation and capacity, the study reveals that an antenna array configuration comprising of elements distributed random-homogeneously in a spherical shell outperforms other configurations.