Time-Reversal Massive Multipath Effect: A Single-Antenna “Massive MIMO” Solution

Abstract

The explosion of mobile data traffic calls for new efficient 5G technologies. Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), which has shown the great potential in improving the achievable rate with a very large number of antennas, has become a popular candidate. However, the requirement of deploying a large number of antennas at the base station may not be feasible in indoor scenarios due to the high implementation complexity. Does there exist a good alternative that can achieve similar system performance to massive MIMO for indoor environment? In this paper, we show that by using time-reversal (TR) signal processing, with a sufficiently large bandwidth, one can harvest the massive multipaths naturally existing in a rich-scattering environment to form a large number of virtual antennas and achieve the desired massive multipath effect with a single antenna. We answer the above question by analyzing the TR massive multipath effect and the achievable rate with some waveforms. We also derive the corresponding asymptotic achievable rate under a massive multipath setting. Experiment results based on real indoor channel measurements show that the massive multipaths can be revealed with a sufficiently large bandwidth in a practical indoor environment. Moreover, based on our experiments with real indoor measurements, the achievable rate of the TR wideband system is evaluated.