Adaptive Beamforming Switch in Realistic Massive MIMO System with Prototype

Abstract

This letter proposes an adaptive beamforming switch algorithm for realistic massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems through prototypes. It is analyzed and identified that a rigid single-mode beamforming regime is hard to maintain superior performance all the time due to no adaption to the inevitable channel variation in practice. In order to cope with this practical issue, the proposed systematic beamforming mechanism is investigated to enable dynamic selection between minimum mean-squared error and grid-of-beams beamforming algorithms, which improves system downlink performance, including throughput and block error rate. The significant performance benefits and realistic feasibility have been validated through the field tests in live networks and theoretical analyses. Meanwhile, the adaptive beamforming switch algorithm is applicable to both fourth and fifth generation time-division duplexing cellular communication system using massive-MIMO technology.