Performance Characteristics of

Massive MIMO in Rural Scenarios

Frederick Vook
Nokia Bell Labs
IWPC Workshop on Rural Connectivity
New Orleans, January 30, 2019
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 Does Massive MIMO make sense in rural scenarios?

• Performance & cost characteristics

• Cost vs. performance tradeoff given

expected user data traffic demands

• Our focus: performance characteristics

- System & deployment parameters
- User data traffic characteristics

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Massive MIMO Performance in Rural Scenarios – Case Study

Can Massive MIMO provide performance

benefits in rural deployments?

 Detailed 3GPP RAN1-style system level

simulations: IMT-2020 Rural Macro Scenario

 Compare a 32-port Massive MIMO array

against a legacy 8-port array (LTE/NR)

 Key parameters: antenna height, inter-site

distances, traffic characteristics

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Massive MIMO  Extending MIMO to Large Antenna Arrays

ANTENNA ARRAYS
large number (>>8) of Enhance Coverage
controllable antennas High gain adaptive
beamforming

ANTENNA SIGNALS
adaptable by the Benefits

physical layer

Not limited Enhance Capacity

to a particular High order spatial
implementation multiplexing

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Massive MIMO in 3GPP New Radio – Beam-based air-interface

Beamformed Control Channels Beam Management

Cell 1

Cell 2

PSS2
PSS1
SSS2
SSS1
PCI2
PCI1
TRP1 (Cell1)

TRP1 (Cell2)
BRS#0
BRS#0
BRS#1
BRS#1

TRP2 (Cell1) BRS#2

BRS#2
BRS#3
PSS1
SSS1
BRS#3
PCI1

Beam Sweeping PSS2

SSS2
PCI2
TRP2 (Cell2)

Key features
• Beam based initial access
• Scalable and Flexible CSI Acquisition Framework
• High performing CSI Acquisition Codebooks

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 Case Study: Massive MIMO in Rural Macro
• 2GHz carrier with 10MHz BW

• Model A Rural Macro configuration

(IMT-2020)

Base • Base Sites:

- 3-sector deployment
Height - 50 dBm total TX power
- Heights: 15m, 30m, 45m, 90m
- ISDs: 8km, 16km, 24km

• UEs: 2RX
- 50% are indoors (3kmph)
- 50% are in cars (30kmph)

• User data traffic:

- Full Buffer (10 UEs/sector)
Inter-Site - FTP Model 1 (various offered loads)

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Distance (ISD)
 Antenna Array Configurations

“Legacy” 8-Port Array “Massive MIMO” Array

(12,4,2) (12,8,2)

Physical
Array Panel
Construction

Transceiver 8 TRXU (1,4,2) 32 TXRU (2,8,2)

Configuration
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Full array transceiver aggregation Sub-array transceiver aggregation
 Downlink MIMO Framework in 3GPP Single CSI-RS (analogous to LTE Class
NR gNB A)
UE
• Beam-based initial access for coverage
• CSI Framework combined with beam RI/PMI(32)/CQI

management to enable arbitrary sized

antenna arrays Multiple CSI-RS (Beam switching)

• Single Transmission Scheme gNB CSI-RS (8 ports)

CSI-RS (8 ports)
UE
- SU-MIMO: Up to 8 transmission layers per UE CSI-RS (8 ports)

- MU-MIMO: Up to 12 orthogonal DMRS CSI-RS (8 ports)

CRI/RI/PMI(8)/CQI

• Codebooks for up to 32 ports

- Type I Codebook: standard resolution CSI feedback, SRS-Based (TDD Reciprocity)
1-8 MIMO Layers (SU focus) gNB SRS
UE
- Type II Codebook: enhanced CSI feedback for MU-
MIMO, 1-2 MIMO Layers per UE
RI/CQI

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 Massive MIMO Configurations: LTE and 5G New Radio
Performance depends on implementation details and traffic characteristics

8-ports 32-ports

Basic 8-port “Legacy LTE” 32-port “Basic NR”

 SU-MIMO, Rel-10 CB  MU-MIMO Type I CB, no ZF
Performance

8-port “Optimized NR” 32-port “Optimized NR”

Optimized
performance  MU-MIMO, Type II CB, ZF  MU-MIMO, Type II CB, ZF

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 Traffic Characteristics and MU-MIMO

• Full Buffer Traffic:

- Each sector has for example an average of 10 active UEs with data to send
- Each UE generates a new packet once a packet is successfully delivered
- Generally interference limited, generally lots of opportunities to pair users with MU-MIMO

• Bursty Traffic (e.g., FTP model 1)

- UEs arrive in the system with a packet to send at some pre-defined arrival rate. A UE
disappears once its packet is served
- For low arrival rates: generally path loss limited with few opportunities to pair users with MU-
MIMO
- For high arrival rates: generally interference limited with more opportunities to pair users with
MU-MIMO
- A too-high arrival rate can cause instability (the system SE is too low to serve the incoming
packet arrival rate)

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Full Buffer Traffic

Performance as a function of ISD

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Rural Macro w/ Full Buffer Traffic: ISD=8km (4.97miles)

40%
32%
24% 67%
53% 37%
48% 36%
44%

Poor coverage for base height=15m Large gains with 32 ports over 8 ports
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for base heights = 30m, 45m, 90m
Rural Macro w/ Full Buffer Traffic: ISD=16km (9.94miles)

27%

64%

13 Poor coverage for base heights < 90m Large gains with 32 ports over 8 ports
for base height = 90m
Rural Macro w/ Full Buffer Traffic: ISD=24km (14.91miles)

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Poor coverage for all base heights
FTP Model 1

Performance at ISD=8km

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Rural Macro w/ FTP traffic: ISD=8km (4.97miles)
Mean UE SE Edge UE SE (5th percentile)

12%
System BW=10MHz
28% 13%

62%
23%

363%

• Large gains with 32 ports over 8 ports even in bursty traffic

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• Higher traffic loads lead to higher gains from Massive MIMO
Rural Macro w/FTP traffic: ISD=8km (4.97miles) - Utilization

System BW=10MHz

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32-port arrays have much lower overall resource utilization
Rural Macro: ISD=8km (4.97miles): Mean # of Paired UEs with MU-MIMO.
FTP Model 1 Full Buffer

18 • Relatively low MU-MIMO pairing in bursty traffic

• Lots of MU-MIMO pairing in full buffer traffic
Summary

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 Massive MIMO in Rural Macro: Summary
• We see significant performance gains in using Massive MIMO over legacy
8-port arrays in both Full Buffer and Bursty Traffic Scenarios
• Need high antenna heights: higher antenna heights can cover higher
ISDs.
- Covering an 8km ISD requires antenna heights at least 30m
- Covering a 16km ISD requires antenna heights at least 90m
- A 24km ISD is too high
• Coverage Aspects:
- NR provides improved control channel coverage for LTE through beam
sweeping on the control channel. That aspect is not shown in these spectral
efficiency-oriented simulations.
• Massive MIMO can provide significant performance benefits in rural
scenarios with high base heights.
- Similar performance characteristics as is seen in urban macro/micro scenarios.
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Appendix – 1

Detailed system simulation parameters

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Massive MIMO in Rural Macro
Detailed simulation parameters
• 3GPP-RAN1-style System Level simulations
- 10MHz system bandwidth with 30% air interface overhead in all cases
- Full buffer traffic: 10 active UEs per sector on average
- FTP model 1: various traffic loads. Packet size = 0.5 MB, arrival rates of 1,2,4 packets per second corresponding to 4,8,16Mbps offered load
• Model A Rural Macro configuration (IMT-2020)
- 50% of UEs are indoors (3kmph), 50% are outdoors in cars (30kmph)
• Base Station Heights:
- 15m = 49.2 feet
- 30m = 98.4 feet
- 45m = 147.6 feet
- 90m = 295.3 feet
• Inter-site distances (ISDs):
- 8km = 4.97 miles
- 16km = 9.94 miles
- 24km = 14.91 miles
• UEs with 2RX
• Antenna array details for all cases:
- Spacing between rows = 0.7λ
- Spacing between columns = 0.5λ
- Physical elements: 8dBi max gain, 65degree beamwidth in elevation and azimuth
- Mechanical downtilt = 1degree. Electrical downtilt is zero degrees for the physical-to-logical transceiver aggregation.
• Total TX power fed to Base Station array = 50dBm

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Appendix - 2

Performance in full buffer traffic as a function

of base height
(an alternate view of the results)

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Rural Macro w/ Full Buffer Traffic: Base height = 15m (49.2ft)

25 Poor coverage with 15m base heights

Rural Macro w/ Full Buffer Traffic: Base height = 30m (98.4ft)

Large gains with 32 ports

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over 8 ports for ISD=8km
Poor coverage for ISD > 8km
Rural Macro w/ Full Buffer Traffic: Base height = 45m (147.6ft)

Large gains with 32 ports

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over 8 ports for ISD=8km
Poor coverage for ISD > 8km
Rural Macro w/ Full Buffer Traffic: Base height = 90m (295.3ft)

Large gains with 32 ports over 8 ports Poor coverage for ISD=24km
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for ISD=8km,16km
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