Massive MIMO Proof-of-Concept: Emulations and Hardware-Field Trials at 3.5 GHz

Massive MIMO and beamforming is commonly considered as one of the key technologies for future cellular communications. It is targeted to solve the capacity requirements in enhanced mobile broadband and enable new services in other communication fields, e.g. machine type communications. In this work, we study M-MIMO technology in a novel approach, combining system simulations and modeling with hardware prototyping and measurements. In particular, we study different beamforming techniques in an indoor lab environment with real over-the-air experiments. In a next step, we compare our results with a modeled environment and finally extrapolate this to full 3D beamforming techniques using an urban-micro scenario model.