Massive MIMO: An Introduction

Demand for wireless throughput, both mobile and fixed, will always increase. One can anticipate that, in five or ten years, millions of augmented reality users in a large city will want to transmit and receive 3D personal high-definition video more or less continuously, say 100 megabits per second per user in each direction. Massive MIMO-also called Large-Scale Antenna Systems-is a promising candidate technology for meeting this demand. Fifty-fold or greater spectral efficiency improvements over fourth generation (4G) technology are frequently mentioned. A multiplicity of physically small, individually controlled antennas performs aggressive multiplexing/demultiplexing for all active users, utilizing directly…