Abstract
Collaborative communication working on user side have been identified as one of key technologies for next-generation networks and so that lead to dramatic improvements in both spectral and energy efficiencies. In this technology, multiple collaborative users (CUs) can be considered as a single user equipped with multiple antennas and maximize the performances of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, only noting an assumption that the links between all of CUs are perfect. In fact, however, the unsuccessful data sharing between CUs due to, for instance, the presence of interference, may lead to packet errors, and finally decreases the number of collaborated users and further degrades the performance of MIMO systems. In the present study, in order to demonstrate and evaluate the user collaboration, we conduct field experiments to observe the states of inter-user links in MIMO systems with collaborative communications and considering the effect of interference. Experiment results indicate that the links between the CUs are not always prefect, and are significantly affected by the present interference. The results also show some state correlation on the inter-user links.
