Efficient Multiple-Group Multiple-Antenna (MGMA) Scheme for High-Speed Railway Viaducts

Abstract

The capacity of a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) channel with N transmit and receive antennas for highspeed railways (HSRs) is analyzed based on the 3-D modeling of the line of sight (LOS). The MIMO system utilizes a uniform linear antenna array. Instead of increasing the number of antennas or simply changing the parameters of the antenna array, such as separation and geometry, the capacity gain can be obtained by adjusting the weights of multiantenna array groups, because there are few scatterers in strong LOS environments. On the other hand, it is hard to obtain the array gain of MIMO beamforming for HSRs because of drastic changes in the receiving angle when the train travels across E-UTRAN Node B. Without changing the antenna design of Long-Term Evolution systems, this paper proposes a multiple-group multiple-antenna (MGMA) scheme that makes the columns of such a MIMO channel orthogonal by adjusting the weights among MGMA arrays, and the stable capacity gain can be obtained. The value of weights depends on the practical network topologies of the railway wireless communication system. However, the reasonable scope of group number N is less than 6. In selecting N, one important consideration is the tradeoff between practical benefit and cost of implementation.