Assessment of Distributed Multi-User MIMO Transmission in 5G Networks

We present a simulation-based assessment of the performance potential of distributed MIMO (D-MIMO), multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) and particularly the combined D/MU-MIMO operation, for which we extend previously published scheduling and beamforming principles. The assessment study reveals that, when optimizing average user throughput performance, D-MIMO, while fruitless when used in isolation, is very effective when intelligently combined with MU-MIMO. Alternatively, when optimizing the cell edge performance, MU-MIMO, while also shown to be ineffective when used in isolation, is in fact very valuable when accompanied by a suitable configuration of D-MIMO. As an illustrative example, when using a jointly optimised configuration of D/MU-MIMO in a highly loaded urban deployment scenario, a 121% cell edge performance gain can be attained over a scenario using only D-MIMO, and even a demonstrated 153% gain over a scenario where only the MU-MIMO feature is available.