SPATIAL NULL CREATION USING MASSIVE MIMO (M-MIMO)

摘要

In a base station having a Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (M-MIMO) antenna array, the availability of the M-MIMO antenna array is exploited to manage the interference caused by the base station to neighboring cells. In one embodiment, the large number of antenna elements of the M-MIMO antenna array are used to create precise transmit and/or receive spatial nulls at specific User Equipments (UEs) being served by a neighboring cell and/or in select areas of the neighboring cell. Depending on whether the spatial null is partial or full, transmissions by the base station may have reduced or even zero receive power within the neighboring cell.

主权项

1. A base station, comprising:
a Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (M-MIMO) antenna array comprising a plurality of antenna elements; a processor configured to:
determine an estimate of a channel from the base station to a user equipment served by a neighboring base station;determine, based at least in part on the estimate, a transmit precoder matrix;apply the transmit precoder matrix to a plurality of data streams to generate a plurality of pre-coded data streams; andcouple the plurality of pre-coded data streams to a subset of the plurality of antenna elements of the M-MIMO antenna array to transmit the plurality of pre-coded data streams,wherein the processor is further configured to determine at least one of the transmit precoder matrix and the subset of the plurality of antenna elements to spatially align interference due to transmission of the plurality of pre-coded data streams in one or more spatial directions at the user equipment.