◆ 3D Beamforming: Performance Improvement

for Cellular Networks

Hardy Halbauer, Stephan Saur, Johannes Koppenborg,
and Cornelis Hoek

The beam pattern of a mobile communication base station has significant

impact on the performance of a cellular network. Three-dimensional (3D)
beamforming combines the horizontal beam pattern adaptation, as applied
for beamforming and multiple input multiple output (MIMO) schemes, with
a vertical antenna pattern adaptation. The recent availability of new flexible
antenna techniques enables a fully dynamic antenna pattern adaptation
which can be specified per resource block and user equipment (UE), and
makes 3D beamforming practically feasible. This paper describes the basic
principles of 3D beamforming, including the impact of downtilt adaptation
on the physical layer as well as the potential of its combination with beam
coordination involving the media access control (MAC) layer. Our
investigations assumed the vertical main lobe of the beam pattern was
geometrically pointed towards the UE. We discuss a number of different
realization options and simulation results including a Bell Labs field trial with
vertical beam steering. Using wireless systems with state of the art Long Term
Evolution (LTE) signal format and including the lightRadioTM antenna array,
our trials in the Stuttgart testbed verified the basic predicted properties and
potential advantages of 3D beamforming. © 2013 Alcatel-Lucent.

Introduction further increases in system capacity. The key idea is

We are witnessing tremendous growth in demand
for capacity in mobile cellular communications.
Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) and coordi-
nated multipoint (CoMP) transmission schemes are
two areas where an immense amount of research has
been conducted over the past few years. However,
sophisticated transmission schemes such as these also
imply additional system complexity and costs. The
recent development of a novel antenna technology
offers a relatively simple and attractive means for
to adapt the vertical dimension of the antenna radia-
tion pattern and to steer the transmitted energy in a
beneficial direction, similar to beamforming or pre-
coding in the horizontal plane.
The propagation characteristic in cellular net-
works is characterized by a mix of line of sight (LOS)
and non-LOS (NLOS) propagation conditions with
varying reflections, so performance may suffer from
a high variability of the channel impulse response
over time, frequency, and space. Different varieties of

Bell Labs Technical Journal 18(2), 37–56 (2013) © 2013 Alcatel-Lucent. • DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21604
 Panel 1. Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Terms
3D—Three-dimensional
3G—Third generation
3GPP—3rd Generation Partnership Project
AAA—Active antenna array
CDF—Cumulative distribution function
CoMP—Coordinated multipoint
CPRI—Common public radio interface
CQI—Channel quality indication
CSI—Channel state information
eNB—Evolved NodeB
HPBW—Half-power beam width
ISD—Inter site distance
LOS—Line of sight
LTE—Long Term Evolution
multi-antenna systems have been applied to improve
performance. Classic beamforming concentrates the
signal energy in the direction of the receiver, and at
the same time reduces interference in other direc-
tions. MIMO systems exploit the spatial diversity of
the radio channel or enable spatial multiplexing
through adaptation of the antenna weights accord-
ing to the channel characteristics [3].
All these techniques usually operate only on the
horizontal antenna pattern. The vertical pattern is
fixed and has a narrow half-power beam width
(HPBW) which must be wide enough to cover the
cell range and small enough to guarantee a high
antenna gain. However, the resulting inter-cell inter-
ference is the same whether UEs close to the evolved
Node B (eNB) are being served or UEs close to the
cell edge are being served.
3D beamforming, which enables fully dynamic
adaptation of the vertical beam pattern per resource
and per UE, offers promising performance improve-
ments. It can increase signal strength by pointing the
vertical main lobe directly at the receiver at any loca-
tion. In addition, it reduces inter-cell interference
when serving users closer to the eNB. With beam
coordination or MIMO schemes, the variation in ver-
tical dimension has the capability to exploit addi-
tional diversity or spatial separation, which then can
be used to either improve signal quality or increase
the number of simultaneously served users.
38 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj
MAC—Media access control
MIMO—Multiple input multiple output
NLOS—Non-line-of-sight
OFDM—Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplex
PF—Proportional fair
PMI—Precoding matrix index
RF—Radio frequency
SINR—Signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio
SNR—Signal-to-noise ratio
SON—Self-optimizing network
TTI—Transport time interval
TS—Technical specification
UE—User equipment
Some self-optimizing network (SON) systems [5]
already make use of antenna downtilt adaptation to
optimize cell performance, but they do so in a static or
quasi-static way. However, with upcoming advanced
antenna technologies, completely new and highly
dynamic schemes for horizontal and vertical beam
pattern adaptation on a per resource (transport time
interval (TTI)) and per UE basis are now becoming
feasible, which allows the use of 3D beamforming in
combination with interference coordination tech-
niques. Some of these functionalities can already be
realized with the current 3rd Generation Partnership
Project (3GPP) Technical Specification (TS) 36.211
Release (Rel.) 10 standard [2], but others would
require extensions, which need to be taken into
account and are under discussion for future releases.
This paper provides an overview of these new
possibilities. It highlights the technological back-
ground, the basic principles, and several realization
options for 3D beamforming. We investigate the
potential benefits in single- and multi-cell scenarios
and also consider a vertical distribution of users.
Concepts for combined 3D beamforming and interfer-
ence coordination are also addressed. Though there
has been a good deal of theoretical and simulation
work, practical measurements are quite rare. We
present field trials which verify the feasibility and
benefits of 3D beamforming in a real deployment sce-
nario at the Bell Labs testbed in Stuttgart.
 Note that our system simulation assumes a geo-
metric pointing of the vertical main lobe of the beam
pattern. This is in accordance with the 3GPP simula-
tion method described in [1], where a 3D antenna
model is given, but no specific properties for the ver-
tical channel are specified. Of course, this model is
not fully realistic in an NLOS environment. There are
already theoretical models for the vertical propaga-
tion characteristics in specific scenarios [4]. But
recent detailed measurements [7] revealed that for
many classic macrocell scenarios with a base station
location sufficiently high above the rooftops, point-
ing geometrically towards the UE is a valid approach.
Principle of 3D Beamforming
Beamforming and MIMO schemes, as widely
used, shape the horizontal pattern of the transmit-
ting eNB to maximize performance. Shaping the ver-
tical pattern, in contrast, has to take into account
several restrictions with respect to the adjustment
range, caused by the vertical cell geometry. Further,
similar to the horizontal pattern shaping, various
realization options with different levels of complex-
ity and performance impact are feasible.
Beam Pattern Adjustment
To shape the horizontal beam pattern of beamform-
ing and MIMO schemes, the horizontally arranged
antenna elements are fed with digitally preprocessed
data streams. 3D beamforming promises further perfor-
mance improvement through simultaneous and
dynamic UE-specific adaptation of the vertical antenna
pattern. We expect reduced interference at the cell edge
for resources serving UEs closer to the eNB, and increased
signal strength when pointing the vertical main lobe
directly at the UE [11]. An additional degree of freedom
can be exploited for beam coordination [6, 8].
However, the situation in the vertical direction is
different than that of the horizontal direction.
Whereas horizontally an angle between +60° and
−60° is available for UE separation, the angular
range is smaller in the vertical direction. For the
example of an inter site distance (ISD) of 500 meters
and an eNB height of 30 meters, the minimum angle
towards the cell edge (geometric downtilt) is 6°, and
95 percent of the downtilt angles needed to serve the
cell area are below 20°. The cumulative distribution
function (CDF) of the downtilt angles for this exam-
ple is shown in Figure 1. The smaller HPBW, typi-
cally 5° to 10° in the vertical direction, helps to
realize the required higher accuracy in pattern adap-
tation and improves vertical spatial separation.
Antennas with electronically adjustable downtilt
have been available for a number of years. One way
to build such an antenna is to vertically stack multiple
antenna elements and feed them with identical sig-
nals having the appropriate phase shift. This principle
is shown in Figure 2. The relation between the result-
ing beam angle θ with respect to boresight direction
and the required phase shift ϕ between adjacent
transmitting elements is calculated according to
ϕ⋅λ
θ = arcsin ( )
2π ⋅ d
where d is the distance between the transmitting ele-
ments, and λ is the wavelength of the radio frequency
(RF) carrier. Downtilt adjustment can be realized with
selectable passive feeder networks. While this
approach is suitable for adapting the downtilt of the
full signal bandwidth, the 3D beamforming approach
considered here requires dynamic beam pattern adap-
tation per assigned resource block, i.e., per UE.
Therefore, each transmitting element must be able to
transmit each frequency sub-band with a specific
phase shift. This can be realized with new hardware
concepts like the Alcatel-Lucent lightRadioTM technol-
ogy. Individual active antenna elements are served
with appropriately preprocessed baseband signals,
which supports individual downtilts per resource block
and per TTI.
Operation Modes
A number of different realization options may be
used to adapt the vertical beam pattern. The most
straightforward is to use direct steering to point the
vertical main lobe towards the UE being served. When
serving UEs at the cell edge, this can lead to more
interference in adjacent cells than when using fixed
downtilt. Thus there are limitations on the downtilt
that may be applied when using direct steering.
The vertical HPBW (5° . . . 10°) is large compared
to the range of possible downtilts (6° . . . 20°). This
DOI: 10.1002/bltj Bell Labs Technical Journal 39
 1

0.8

CDF (P downtilt < x-axis)

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Downtilt (°)
CDF—Cumulative distribution function
eNB—Evolved NodeB

Figure 1.
CDF of downtilts in a multi-cell system (inter site distance = 500 meters, eNB height = 30 meters).

the UE within the cell, one of these downtilts is

assigned. Figure 3 shows an example for three fixed
Boresight direction
ϕ downtilts of 17°, 13°, and 9°. The size of the areas
Θ
assigned to the downtilts is an additional parameter
d for optimization. Since the different fixed beams are
Direction of beam with intended to serve UEs located near the eNB (e.g.,
ϕ downtilt 17°) or far from the eNB (e.g., 9°), we will refer to
these downtilt values as “near downtilt” and “far
downtilt” in the remainder of the paper.

ϕ
System Description and Performance Evaluation
(System Simulation)
Antenna elements
We used an Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing (OFDM)-based cellular system to inves-
RF transmission
signal tigate the 3D beamforming capabilities of the down-
RF—Radio frequency
link. The resources were arranged in a radio frame
according to LTE-Advanced 3GPP Release 10 [2].
Figure 2. Assignment to users is in physical resource blocks
Principle of beamforming antenna. extended in time and frequency. Each resource block
consisted of 12 subcarriers and 14 time symbols. For
fact leads to an approximation of the exact main lobe a system with 10 MHz bandwidth, the number of
steering mode: the selection among a small number resource blocks was 50. These resource blocks were
of fixed downtilts (2 or 3), and also dynamically per equally distributed among the UEs in a cell. At the
resource block and UE. Depending on the location of eNB side, the antenna was either a single sector

40 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj

 3 DT areas: Θ = 17° Θ = 13°
DT—Downtilt
Figure 3.
Serving users with three fixed downtilts.
antenna or one consisting of four antenna elements
with λ/2 spacing to realize horizontal beamforming.
Performance potential and benefits of the 3D beam-
forming operation modes introduced above were
evaluated with an LTE downlink system simulator
comprised of multiple sites and cells. The main system
parameters used for the various evaluations are sum-
marized in Table I. As different aspects of 3D beam-
forming were investigated, e.g., a comparison of the
operation modes in noise-limited and interference-
limited systems, or multi-cell systems with and with-
out coordination, some of the parameters differ from
case to case. We present the most important results
and conclusions from our simulation studies below.
The system simulation first determines the distri-
bution of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio
(SINR) in the considered area based on a random
positioning of UEs. Link level abstraction models
then map the SINR values to a corresponding
throughput performance used to derive the two met-
rics of interest in this study: Spectral efficiency meas-
ured in bit/s/Hz/cell is the expectation of the sum
rate per frequency unit in one cell, and cell edge user
throughput is defined as the five percent quantile of
all observed UE throughputs in kbit/s.
3D Beamforming Without Coordination
At first, we evaluated the performance poten-
tial of 3D beamforming without coordination. We dis-
tinguished between a single cell scenario representing
Θ = 9° Adjacent cell
noise-limited systems with no or negligible inter-cell
interference, and a multi-cell scenario reflecting inter-
ference-limited systems, which is the typical case in
many cellular radio systems aiming at spectral
efficiency.
Single-Cell Scenario
This deployment scenario with only a single cell is
well suited to investigate the impact of the vertical
main lobe adaptation of the antenna pattern, i.e.,
exploiting the maximum vertical antenna gain at all
locations within the cell. The evaluation of one single
isolated cell reflects a noise-limited system where the
impact of interference on the performance can be
neglected. This is typically the case in cellular systems
with high frequency reuse factors, since adjacent cells
operate in different frequency bands. One interesting
aspect is that coverage can be extended by pointing the
antenna pattern main lobe towards UEs close to the cell
edge, rather than using a fixed downtilt. In particular,
the objective was to compensate the additional path
loss when the 3D beamforming system is operating at a
2.6 GHz carrier frequency instead of 2.1 GHz. This is
a typical scenario if the operator changes over from
third generation (3G) to LTE and maintains its site loca-
tions. The additional path loss at 2.6 GHz is approxi-
mately 2 dB for a typical cell radius of 250 meters. It
was assumed that the 3D beamforming system is
equipped with an antenna that can switch between a
near- and a far downtilt for the inner cell and cell edge,
DOI: 10.1002/bltj Bell Labs Technical Journal 41
Table I. Scenarios and main system simulation parameters and outcomes.

Scenario 1 Scenario 2
Scenarios Beamforming without coordination Beamforming with coordination
Single cell Multi-cell Multi-cell with Implicit Horizontal and vertical
vertical UE coordination beam coordination
distribution
Purpose Compensation 3D beamform- Evaluation of per- Performance Performance improve-
of path loss at ing downtilt formance poten- improvement with- ment using additional
different parameter tial in dense urban out inter-eNodeB adjacent cell interfer-
frequencies optimization scenarios with communication ence information
high buildings
Inter site
— 500 meters
distance
Antenna eNB: 32 m; UE: 1.5 m eNB: 30 m; UEs dis- eNB: 32 m; UE: 1.5 m
height tributed between
0 m and 90 m
eNodeB Measured Shape accord- Shape according Shape according Shape according to
antenna beam pattern ing to 3GPP to 3GPP TR 36.814; to 3GPP TR 3GPP TR 36.814;
pattern of AAA with TR 36.814; 36.814;
Horizontal HPBW: Horizontal HPBW: 70°
horizontal
Horizontal 70° (4 elements); Horizontal HPBW: (4 elements);
HPBW: 75°
HPBW: 70° (1 Vertical HPBW: 10° 70° (4 elements); Vertical HPBW: 6.5°
and vertical
element); Vertical HPBW: 10°
HPBW 6.2°
Vertical HPBW:
10°
Number of 1/1 19/57 7/21
sites/cells
Cell: 120° Cell: 120° sector Cell: 120° sector
sector
Propagation 3GPP SCME case 1
Line-of-sight
model (non-line-of-sight)
UEs per cell 10 randomly distributed 15 randomly distributed
Frequency
10 MHz bandwidth; reuse 1
resources
Scheduling
Round robin Proportional fair
algorithms
Major study Compensation “Two fixed Rural flat scenario: 42% gain in cell 50% gain in cell edge
outcome of increased downtilt opera- 5% gain in spec- edge throughput throughput
path loss if tion” mode tral efficiency
12% gain in 16% gain in spectral
carrier fre- primarily
Skyscrapers sce- spectral efficiency
quency steps improves cell
nario: 80% gain in efficiency
from 2.1 GHz edge user
spectral efficiency
to 2.6 GHz is throughput,
possible whereas
“Direct steering
with limitation“
boosts spectral
efficiency
3D—Three-dimensional
3GPP—3rd Generation Partnership Program
AAA—Active antenna array
eNB—Evolved NodeB
HPBW—Half-power beam width
SCME—Spatial channel model extended
TR—Technical recommendation
UE—User equipment

42 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj

 2

1,9
Spectral efficiency (bit/s/Hz)

1,8

1,7
15°/8°
15°/9°

1,6 15°/10°
17°/8°
17°/9°
1,5 17°/10°
19°/9°
19°/10°
1,4
80 100 120 140 160 180
Border between near and far area (meters)

Figure 4.
Spectral efficiency for combinations of two fixed downtilts versus the distance of the border between near- and
far area from the base station.

Table II. Performance comparison of two different radio systems operating at different carrier
frequencies with individually optimized parameters.

Metric One fixed downtilt 10° 2.1 GHz Two fixed downtilts 17° and 9° 2.6 GHz
Spectral efficiency 1.86 bit/s/Hz 1.91 bit/s/Hz
Cell edge user
437 kbit/s 399 kbit/s
throughput

respectively. This parameter setting is summarized in
the “Single Cell” column in Table I, scenario 1.
As a first step, and as shown in Figure 4, differ-
ent combinations of near and far downtilt were com-
pared, and an appropriate border maximizing the
spectral efficiency between the regions was identi-
fied for each combination. Surprisingly, the main
outcome was that the achievable maximal spectral
efficiency does not depend on the radius of the bor-
der. For each border a different combination of near
and far downtilt provides this optimal value for the
spectral efficiency. Overall, we found the combination
of near downtilt = 17° (serving 23 percent of the
cell) and far downtilt = 9° (serving 77 percent of
the cell) to be the most appropriate setting.
Table II provides a comparison of the baseline
system (2.1 GHz with one fixed downtilt at 10°)
and the 3D beamforming system (2.6 GHz with two
fixed downtilts at 17° and 9°). In spite of the
increased path loss, spectral efficiency can be slightly
improved with 3D beamforming since the received
signal power in the near area is significantly higher
as a result of the steep near downtilt of 17°.
The much more important fact is that the cell edge

DOI: 10.1002/bltj Bell Labs Technical Journal 43

 One fixed DT (baseline)
Two fixed DT with near DT = 17°
Direct steering with limitation
200
Cell edge user throughput (kbit/s) 12°

160 12°
Increasing
DT limitation
Increasing
120
far DT
7° 16°
5°

80
16°
Increasing
fixed DT
40
10°

0
0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
Spectral efficiency (bit/s/Hz/cell)
DT—Downtilt

Figure 5.
Cell edge user throughput over spectral efficiency for different operation modes and configurations.

user throughput can be conserved. Thus 3D beam- UE, as well as the vertical HPBW. The “Multi-Cell”
forming is able to compensate a 2 dB increase in column in Table I, scenario 1 represents the param-
path loss. eters for a classic macrocellular scenario. The objec-
tive was to study the pure impact of the vertical
Multi-Cell Scenario antenna pattern on the performance. We therefore
In the remainder of this paper we focus on a utilized a fixed sector pattern of 70° on the horizon-
multi-cell scenario with a frequency reuse factor of tal plane. The baseline again was a system with one
1 since it is widely deployed in densely populated fixed downtilt which varied between 10° and 18°.
suburban and urban areas where mutual interfer- As the downtilt increased, spectral efficiency also
ence between the cells is the major performance- increased until the optimum was reached at 16°.
limiting effect. The carrier frequency is 2.6 GHz This is because interference is reduced as the down-
throughout all studies. The basic objective was to tilt becomes steeper. However, at 17° the cell edge
optimize the setting of the different 3D beamform- user throughput drops off because the far region of
ing operation modes and to compare them with the cell can no longer be covered.
respect to achievable spectral efficiency and cell edge Figure 5 also shows the results for a case with
user throughput. The most significant parameters two fixed downtilts. The near downtilt is fixed at 17°,
impacting the results shown in Figure 5 are the size and the far downtilt varies from 5° onwards in 1°
of the cell, the antenna heights of the eNB and the steps. We observe that both spectral efficiency and

44 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj

cell edge user throughput can be improved simulta-
neously if appropriate combinations of near- and far
downtilts are selected. Overall, we see that using two
fixed downtilts is the preferred mode of operation for
optimizing cell edge user throughput, and that a near
downtilt of 17° and far downtilt of 12° is the best
combination to achieve this (177 kbit/s). This mode
of operation benefits primarily from a reduction of
interference in the far area. Though this is not shown
in Figure 5, curves for other values of the near down-
tilt also show the same principle behavior, but the
achievable cell edge user throughput is slightly lower.
Direct steering is a superior alternative for boost-
ing overall spectral efficiency. However, as we have
shown, the minimal possible downtilt must be lim-
ited in order to avoid severe interference in neigh-
boring cells in cases when an extremely flat beam
might be steered to a UE located close to the cell bor-
der. A limitation at 16° yields the overall highest
spectral efficiency (1.74 bit/s/Hz), and 12° provides
reasonable performance with respect to cell edge
user throughput (150 kbit/s). The main benefit of
direct steering is maximization of the desired user
signal at the UE.
Multi-Cell With Vertical UE Distribution
The classic system simulation approach assumes
that all UEs are located at the same height above
ground. This height is typically one of the system
parameters and it is fixed during the simulation.
Such a scenario reflects a rural macrocellular envi-
ronment very well. However, in a dense urban area
with smaller cell sizes and tall buildings, this simple
model cannot provide a realistic performance assess-
ment. This is especially true for a 3D beamforming
system, which is explicitly designed to exploit the
degree of freedom offered by the vertical dimension
of the beam pattern.
The UE distribution model we used takes into
account the fact that the number of UEs indoors
depends on the height of the building. We therefore
introduced two additional parameters in the simulator
to reflect the vertical distribution of UEs. The first is
the ratio of outdoor UEs, and the second is the maxi-
mum building height. All outdoor UEs are still located
at a height of 1.5 meters, whereas the indoor UEs are
placed at equally distributed random heights between
1.5 meters and the maximum building height. An
additional parameter is the wall penetration loss of
the indoor UEs, which is dependent on the vertical
distance to the eNB. We used a ray tracing analysis to
determine typical distributions of wall penetration
losses versus UE height for the investigated scenarios.
Our model assigns a wall penetration loss value to
each UE based on its vertical distance to the eNB
antenna.
We introduced an extended direct steering mode
for 3D beamforming when the UE was located above
the eNB antenna, and instead of a downtilt, an uptilt
of the beam was applied. Thus instead of being lim-
ited by a minimal possible downtilt in a flat scenario
(all UEs at a 1.5 meter height above ground), we now
excluded a range of downtilt/uptilt values around 0°
that if applied would cause severe interference to
neighboring cells.
The extended simulation tool allowed us to eval-
uate the gain in spectral efficiency for a 3D beam-
forming system (direct steering) over a conventional
case with only one fixed downtilt. In a vertical sce-
nario, where the UEs are located at individual heights
above ground, the optimal value for the fixed down-
tilt is different than that for the flat scenario. For the
sake of fairness, both systems therefore operate with
individually optimized parameters. The cases we
evaluated ranged from a rural flat scenario (maxi-
mum building height 0 meters; indoor ratio 0 per-
cent) to suburban residential (20 meters; 20 percent),
urban (40 meters; 40 percent), city (60 meters, 60
percent) and up to an extreme vertical scenario with
skyscrapers (90 meters; 90 percent). The eNB
antenna was installed at a fixed height of 30 meters.
In Table I, scenario 1, the “Multi-Cell with Vertical
UE Distribution” column shows the complete param-
eter setting. The results are illustrated in Figure 6.
At first we observed a continuous decrease of the
spectral efficiency in the baseline case when stepping
through the different evaluation scenarios (blue
lines). The reason for this behavior is the increasing
range of possible elevation angles in vertical scenar-
ios, i.e., only a small fraction of UEs could be served
DOI: 10.1002/bltj Bell Labs Technical Journal 45
 5% 3,2
One fixed downtilt
3
Spectral efficiency (bit/s/Hz/cell)
One fixed uptilt
2,8
One fixed downtilt (indoor UEs)
2,6
One fixed uptilt (indoor UEs)
2,4
Intelligent exact steering
2,2 80%
2 Intelligent exact steering (indoor UEs)

1,8
1,6
1,4
1,2 Rural eNodeB Skyscrapers
1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Building height (meters) and indoor ratio (%)

3D—Three dimensional
UE—User equipment

Figure 6.
Increasing spectral efficiency gains of 3D-beamforming over one fixed downtilt in vertical scenarios.

appropriately in the city or skyscraper scenario with one Thus 3D beamforming also proves its superiority
Δh
fixed downtilt. The elevation angle Φe is Φe = arctan
x
, ( ) over conventional antenna systems in multi-cell deploy-
ments, especially in vertical scenarios with tall build-
where Δh is the vertical distance between the eNB
ings. The fact that the beam can also be steered in an
antenna and the UE, and x is the respective horizon-
uptilt direction allows the eNB antenna installation to
tal distance. In these two scenarios it is even better to
be below rooftop. As a further advantage, tall buildings
operate with one fixed uptilt because of the large
can then be exploited to provide isolation between cells.
number of indoor UEs in our model. This effect is
also visible in Figure 6 (dark blue lines with trian-
gles). However, outdoor UEs would no longer be 3D Beamforming in Combination With
covered. Direct steering also suffers from the increas- Interference Coordination
ing variety of UE heights, but it can adapt much bet- The advantage of 3D beamforming is based on
ter to these vertical scenarios, as indicated by a improving the SINR at the receiver. On the one hand,
smaller decrease in spectral efficiency when stepping this can be achieved by maximizing the desired user
through the scenarios (black lines). Consequently, signal, in particular, with a direct steering mode of
the main benefit of 3D beamforming becomes clearer operation. On the other hand, a reduction of the
and clearer. Though in a flat scenario, the expected expected interference provides the same effect. Possible
gain in spectral efficiency ranges around five percent, approaches discussed in the previous section include
this value increases significantly—up to 80 percent— limiting the minimal possible downtilt and applying a
in the skyscraper scenario. Figure 6 also shows the rather steep downtilt for UEs close to the eNB in the
expected performance for indoor UEs only (dotted near area. However, up to now, only statistical effects
lines). It can be clearly seen that 3D beamforming have been exploited for interference reduction. The
can keep the spectral efficiency constant although question is how established interference coordination
building height and mean wall penetration loss techniques can be advantageously combined with 3D
increase. beamforming, and which additional performance

46 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj

gains can be achieved in doing so. These studies are
presented in the following.
Implicit Coordination
Interference coordination in general considers
additional information about resource usage and sched-
uling of adjacent cells. Based on this, the resource
assignment in each cell is optimized to reduce the
impact of interference on spectral efficiency and
throughput. Implicit coordination is a method which can
be used without exchanging specific control informa-
tion between eNBs. To minimize interference, the
scheduler assigns radio resources (e.g., frequency sub-
channels or timeslots) by taking the location of the
mobile terminal into account. For UEs located at
the cell border and connected to different eNBs, interfer-
ence can be avoided by assigning orthogonal resources.
The preferred resources for UEs in such locations can be
predefined by configuration and therefore no dynamic
information exchange between eNBs is required.
There are different ways to define the location-
dependent preferred resources. In Figure 7 two spe-
cific examples, comprising three sites with three cells
each, are shown. Each color represents a part of the
available resources. The scheduler assigns the resources
associated with a specific color, e.g., blue, preferably to
users located in the blue regions in Figure 7. The same
applies for the black and gray regions.
(a) Vertical sorting
Figure 7.
Implicit coordination schemes.
Vertical sorting. For the vertical sorting scheme,
the eNB scheduler sorts the UEs according to their
elevation angle towards the eNB, and resources are
assigned according to this elevation angle. Resource
assignment always begins with the UEs closest to the
eNB, but with a different frequency sub-band in each
of the three cells. Although in general, this scheme
works independently from downtilt adaptation, the
combination with 3D beamforming will further
reduce interference between identical radio resources
assigned to the inner part of one cell and to the cell
border of another cell. If we further consider the case
of “three fixed downtilts” (Figure 3) rather than
direct steering, the different resource assignment
areas coincide with the different downtilts.
Horizontal sorting. In a horizontal sorting scheme,
the UEs in each cell are sorted according to their azi-
muth angles. The assignment of resources always
begins at the rightmost side, but with a different fre-
quency sub-band in each of the three cells. However,
the downtilt for each UE is still selected according to
the elevation angle.
Figure 8 provides an indication of the achiev-
able gains in terms of cell edge user throughput ver-
sus spectral efficiency. The system simulation
parameters follow those of the “Implicit coordina-
tion” column in Table I, scenario 2. The eNB is
λ
equipped with four antenna elements with __
2
(b) Horizontal sorting
DOI: 10.1002/bltj Bell Labs Technical Journal 47
 1200
Coordination gain:
33% cell edge user throughput
11% spectral efficiency
1100
Cell edge user throughput (kbit/s)

Coordination gain:
42% cell edge user throughput
12% spectral efficiency
1000
DT 15° (Baseline)
DT 15° (hor. sorting)
900 DT 17°, 13°, 9°
DT 17°, 13°, 9° (vert. sorting)
DT 17°, 13°, 9° (hor. sorting)
800
31% 3D-BF gain
Direct steering
Direct steering (vert. sorting)
700 Direct steering (hor. steering)
4% 3D-BF gain Direct steering, limit 15°

600 Direct steering, limit 15° (vert. sorting)

2,4 2,5 2,6 2,7 2,8 2,9 3 3,1 3,2 3,3 3,4 Direct steering, limit 15° (hor. sorting)
Spectral efficiency (bit/s/Hz/cell)

3D—Three dimensional hor.—Horizontal

BF—Beamforming vert.—Vertical
DT—Downtilt

Figure 8.
Gains of implicit coordination schemes.

spacing and it selects one of eight possible horizontal Distributed Horizontal and Vertical Beam Coordination
beams for each UE. The baseline is one fixed downtilt Applying a UE-specific downtilt already shows
of 15°. Vertical and horizontal sorting for “three fixed gains in cell edge user throughput and spectral effi-
downtilts” and direct steering with and without a ciency when applied in each cell independently or
downtilt limitation are compared. The highest gain is with implicit coordination. Since these gains result
achieved by a combination of 3D beamforming and from statistical reduction of interference, we expected
horizontal sorting. The gain with vertical sorting is even higher gains with an explicit and more dynamic
smaller, mainly due to the limited angular separation coordination of resource allocation which takes into
in the vertical direction. A smaller HPBW could account the actual UE distribution and scheduling
improve this. Maximum gain is achieved with direct requirements. Such a resource coordination scheme
steering and downtilt limitation (a 42 percent requires exchange of information on scheduling
increase in cell edge user throughput, and a 12 per- decisions and resulting interference between eNBs. It
cent increase in spectral efficiency with the system is therefore not implementable with current 3GPP
setup used). It also shows the highest absolute spec- Rel. 10 systems.
tral efficiency. Maximum cell edge user throughput The scheme described in the following assumes
is achieved with three fixed downtilts. This is due to the availability of specific UE feedback on adjacent
reduced interference at the cell edge, whereas direct cell interference. The eNBs exchange this informa-
steering boosts spectral efficiency by maximizing the tion so the schedulers can use the information for
signal strength at the UE. their own scheduling decisions. These schedulers

48 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj

 1100.0
1050.0
1000.0
950.0
5%-ile UE throughput (kbit/s)

•29.9%
900.0
850.0
α=3 α=2
800.0
750.0 •19%
700.0 •9.6%
α=1 •6.5%
650.0
600.0
550.0 Fixed DT 12°, no beam coordination
500.0 Fixed DT 12°, horizontal beam coordination
450.0 3D beamforming with downtilt limitation to 11°, no beam coordination
400.0 3D beamforming with downtilt limitation to 11°, horizontal and vertical
350.0 beam coordination
α = 0.5
300.0
1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6
Spectral efficiency (bits/s/Hz)

3D—Three dimensional
DT—Downtilting
UE—User equipment

Figure 9.
Gains of beam coordination schemes.

apply constraints on specific resources for a specific fairness parameter α for weighting the estimated
UE to avoid interference. The basic coordination data rate based on channel quality indication (CQI)
algorithm for a proportional fair (PF) scheduler, reporting. So each eNB schedules the UE with the
described in [10], already provides some gains with- highest score, for which none of the PMI constraints is
out 3D beamforming. The combination with 3D violated. The PF score is calculated from the average
beamforming adds an additional degree of freedom rate r_avt, the expected instantaneous rate r_instt and
for coordination. The specific UE feedback consists of the weighting parameter α according to
the “worst case interfering precoding matrix indices”
scoret = r_instt/(r_avt)α
(WCIs) of each adjacent cell, which are communi-
cated to each eNB. The WCIs are the precoding Figure 9 shows the simulation results of cell edge
matrix indices (PMIs), which will cause maximum throughput versus the spectral efficiency, with the
interference when applied in the adjacent cell. In parameters from the “Horizontal and Vertical Beam
combination with 3D beamforming, these WCIs are Coordination,” column in Table I, scenario 2 applied.
estimated for the specific downtilt used to serve the All curves represent cases with direct steering, and
UE. The PF schedulers use this information to derive the baseline is a system with a fixed downtilt of 12°
resource allocations which avoid assigning PMIs that without beam coordination (black curve). If horizon-
would cause significant interference in adjacent cells tal coordination is applied without 3D beamforming,
or disturb the cell itself. The scheduling parameters we see a gain of 19 percent in cell edge user through-
include the number of interfering WCIs that must be put and 6.5 percent in spectral efficiency (gray curve).
considered to determine the PMI constraints, and a The gain of the dark blue curve shows the statistical

DOI: 10.1002/bltj Bell Labs Technical Journal 49

gain using 3D beamforming without coordination.
It is interesting to note that 3D beamforming with-
out coordination already achieves slightly more gain
than coordination without 3D beamforming. This is
appealing since the processing complexity is assumed
to be lower because only the location of the UE within
its own cell needs to be known—no coordination is
needed. Finally, the lighter blue curve represents a
case with 3D beamforming with coordination. The
gains of both coordination and 3D beamforming
almost add up to a total gain in cell edge user through-
put of about 50 percent and a gain in spectral effi-
ciency of about 16 percent. The gain in cell edge user
throughput is larger than that for spectral efficiency.
This indicates that the interference reduction effect of
3D beamforming in multi-cell scenarios is stronger
than the increase in signal strength of the served UE.
The latter effect is small mainly because of the small
ratio between the angular variation of downtilt
within the cell and the HPBW of the vertical beam.
This results in only a small increase of signal strength
in areas of low interference.
3D Beamforming Lab and Field Trials
The theoretical investigations discussed in the
previous sections are based on idealized modeling
and assumptions regarding the radio channel proper-
ties in the vertical dimension. There are existing theo-
retical models describing the vertical propagation
characteristics [4]. But to assess the feasibility and to
verify the benefits of 3D beamforming in practice, lab
and field trials with realistic equipment in real deploy-
ment scenarios are essential. We therefore con-
structed a 3D beamforming testbed at the Bell Labs
Stuttgart location to demonstrate the increased
signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver and to quan-
tify the improvement in coverage, cell edge through-
put, and spectral efficiency under real conditions.
We first investigated the expected relation between
downtilt and distance from the eNB, even in NLOS
conditions. We conducted trials using a single-cell sce-
nario with different fixed antenna downtilts which
allowed us to verify that small tilts led to improved
receive signal strength for UEs at the cell edge, while
UEs at cell center benefitted from large downtilts.
50 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj
Similar results of a comparison of the downtilt for maxi-
mum receive power versus the corresponding geomet-
ric downtilts are discussed in [8]. In a second step, we
conducted trials with several 3D beamforming
algorithms; for these trials, the beam pattern was
adapted separately for each UE in the vertical direction.
Measurement Setup/Demonstration System
We used an eNB emulator, exchangeable antenna
hardware, and test UEs (UE0 and UE1) for the 3D
beamforming measurement setup. The antenna hard-
ware was connected to the eNB emulator with a com-
mon public radio interface (CPRI). The center frequency
was 2.6 GHz with a bandwidth of 10 or 20 MHz. For
the field measurements, specific test signals with mul-
tiple data streams with dedicated pilots per antenna
element were sent from the eNB emulator to the test
UEs. The test UEs evaluate the channel state informa-
tion (CSI) of each antenna element and send the infor-
mation back to the eNB. There, the reported CSIs are
analyzed, and the optimum transmit beamforming
weights for each subcarrier are calculated and applied
for the following time interval. Two slightly different
versions of this measurement setup were developed,
one for lab trials, and a second one for the outdoor field
trials. The antenna hardware was changed for the dif-
ferent field trials depending on the different tasks.
Vertical Downtilt Trials Single-Cell
When using vertical beam steering, we focused
specifically on investigating the impact of different
downtilts on the SNR and receive power measured at
different testbed locations. This translated to possible
throughput increases for the addressed user. In the
first test, the measurement setup was equipped with
a special antenna array with four vertically polarized
columns of antenna elements. Each column formed
a sector pattern with a small vertical HPBW and each
could be tilted separately. Each column was fed with
signals of 10 MHz bandwidth with dedicated and dis-
tinguishable pilots from the eNB emulator. This
arrangement allowed for simultaneous measure-
ment of up to four data streams at the receive side
using a dedicated radio network analyzer. The main
outcome of this trial was that the measured receive
power for locations closer to the eNB was higher
with higher downtilts, whereas more distant loca-
tions were better served with lower downtilts as
described in [8]. This corresponded with our simula-
tion results.
In our second trial, we replaced the antenna
array with an active antenna array (AAA) with eight
half-lambda spaced cross-polarized dipoles in the
vertical direction. This meant that the polarization of
the beams was +/−45° as commonly used in many
of today’s LTE networks. The trials were conducted in
a single-cell testbed with a bandwidth of 20 MHz.
The antenna system was installed on a building, 20
meters above street level, at a height of 4 meters
above the rooftop and a distance of 8 meters from
the roof corner. Therefore the maximum realizable
downtilt was about 26°. At higher downtilts, the
beam would be shadowed by the roof. We measured
the receive power level for each mobile’s position in
the testbed for 41 different downtilts between −10°,
−9°, . . . 0°, 1°, 30° (negative tilt values indicate
uptilt). We compared these measurements with ref-
erence measurements for a typical fixed antenna
downtilt of 6°. The drive routes in the testbed were
selected so we could clearly distinguish between
regions with LOS conditions and regions with strong
NLOS conditions. The tilt for optimum receive power
at each mobile position was calculated and compared
with the fixed tilt and the geometric tilt. We obtained
the relative Rx power spectrum (see Figure 10) with
a frequency resolution of 15 kHz and a time resolu-
tion of 5 ms for the 41 different downtilts measured
for each UE position. For a drive route with a strong
LOS component in the direction of the main beam,
for the most part the optimal downtilt was 5° and
there was no significant improvement in receive
power compared to the reference measurement. In

−2

−4
Relative Rx power (dB)

−6
0
−5 −8
−10
−15 −10
−20
10
−12
5
0 10
−14
8
−5 6
Do −10 4
wn −16
til 2
−15 z)
t(
de 0 (MH
gr −2 ncy −18
ee −20 que
) −4 Fre
−25 −6
−8 −20
−30 −10

Rx—Receiver

Figure 10.
Relative Rx power over frequency and downtilt (positive tilt values indicate uptilts).

DOI: 10.1002/bltj Bell Labs Technical Journal 51

 130
Relative Rx power (dB)
120
110
100
Rx—Receiver
Figure 11.
Relative Rx for optimum tilt and for fixed reference tilt.
regions near the base station, it was evident that the
optimal tilt was a perfect match with the geometric
tilt. In regions shadowed by the rooftop, we observed
a receive power improvement of up to 15 dB here at
UE position 11 in Figure 11 (10 dB typically). Note,
however, that in a real system this region would usu-
ally be served by a neighbor cell.
For a typical drive route with a distance of 115 to
280 meters from the base station with non-line-of-
sight conditions, the direct beam was blocked by two
tall buildings. Here the tilt for optimum receive
power varied between 2° and 0°. That meant the
optimum tilt was 4° to 6° higher than the fixed tilt of
6°. The receive power could be improved by 0.5 dB
to 1.5 dB. The main result of these vertical downtilt
trials was that the receive power at the mobile could
be further increased by using vertical beam steering
under most conditions. The optimum tilt range
strongly depends on the selected environment. In
mid-cell areas with a strong line of sight component,
there is little improvement in receive power with
respect to the fixed downtilt because the fixed down-
tilt was already optimal. For regions with strong
NLOS conditions, we obtained significant improve-
ment in areas where the direct beam was blocked by
tall buildings. In this case, downtilts deviate from
geometric downtilts. The reflected paths were domi-
nated by rooftop diffraction, therefore the optimum
downtilts were lower than the geometric downtilts
52 Bell Labs Technical Journal
Optimum tilt
Reference tilt
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Path (relative) units
[4]. In areas where there was a strong deviation of
the geometric downtilt from the fixed downtilt, we
observed receive power improvements of up to more
than 10 dB.
Trials With Adaptive Beamforming Algorithms
The trials described in the previous section used
vertical beamsteering with a narrow vertical HPBW.
The beam pattern was shaped using an open-loop
method.
Here, we consider trials that apply adaptive algo-
rithms to shape the transmit beams in a closed loop
system. We used the same beamforming measure-
ment setup as we had previously and used adaptive
beam steering to two test mobiles. Based on the CSI
measured from the pilot signals at the UEs and
reported to the eNB, a zero-forcing algorithm calcu-
lated the optimum complex beamforming weights
for each subcarrier. This meant we could adapt both
the phase and amplitude of the weights. Both lab
trials and field trials were conducted using this
setup [9].
For principal performance tests in the lab trial,
the antenna array was mounted on a rack 1.8 meters
high. Two test UEs were mounted 4 meters apart on
two stages with a lateral distance of 20 centimeters.
Each UE could be moved 160 cm in the vertical direc-
tion. This setup allowed us to examine the behavior
of the algorithm for different UE locations and
DOI: 10.1002/bltj
 Left side: transmit to UE0; right side transmit to UE1 Left side: transmit to UE0; right side transmit to UE1
−20 −20
−25 −25
−30 −30
−35 −35
Rx power (dB)

Rx power (dB)
−40 −40
−45 −45
−50 −50
−55 Rx UE0 −55
−60 Rx UE1 −60
Rx UE0
−65 −65
Rx UE1
−70 −70
−10 −8 −6 −4 −2 0 2 4 6 8 10 −10 −8 −6 −4 −2 0 2 4 6 8 10
Frequency (MHz) Frequency (MHz)
(a) Lab conditions (b) Field conditions

Rx—Receiver
UE—User equipment

Figure 12.
Separation of receive signals at the UE location.

vertical separations. When examining the behavior
of the algorithm for different UE locations and verti-
cal separations, a vertical separation of only 30 cm
already provided very good separation for the
received signals. Both test UEs operated at 20 MHz.
Figure 12 provides a good visualization of the excel-
lent separation of wanted and unwanted signals. The
representation for each UE was limited to 10 MHz, as
shown in Figure 12a. The lower half of the spectrum
represents UE0 and the upper half of the spectrum rep-
resents UE1. The signal of the unwanted UE was sup-
pressed more than 35 dB. Similar results were found
in other situations (with larger vertical separations)
even with NLOS propagation conditions. Since this
setup was tested in the lab, reflections from the walls
and surfaces contributed to the nicely separable paths
to the individual UEs served by individually adapted
beam weights.
Next, we took the measurement setup to the
outdoor testbed used for the measurements reported
in the previous section. The antenna was mounted at
a height of 7 meters above street level, on a wall of
the Bell Labs building. The beams were steered
towards a street with almost LOS conditions. The
two test UEs were attached to a test van with one
receive antenna per UE mounted on the roof of the
van. We tested the separation of wanted and
unwanted signals for the two test mobiles in different
scenarios and in test van positions both with and
without LOS conditions.
To test a typical realistic scenario, the test van
was parked at a distance of about 30 meters from the
antenna array in an area where the direct beams
were blocked by metal fences, metal garbage con-
tainers, and trees. One antenna (UE0) was on the
roof of the van with NLOS conditions and the second
antenna (UE1) was mounted at street level about
five meters away in a position with a strong LOS
component.
To modify the reflection scenario, we modified
the azimuth direction of the transmit beam pattern
so the horizontal pattern pointed towards different
parts of nearby buildings.
As expected, strong reflection in the direction of
the two test UEs led to a good suppression of the
unwanted signal by about 15 dB for both mobiles, as

DOI: 10.1002/bltj Bell Labs Technical Journal 53

shown in Figure 12b. The trials with a fully adaptive
algorithm in a typical environment showed that
significant signal suppression could be achieved. The
respective suppression of different UEs was depen-
dant on the environmental conditions with LOS or
NLOS and strong reflections from buildings, metal
fences and other obstacles.
Conclusion
This paper presented the basic ideas and princi-
ples of 3D beamforming, thus revealing a multitude
of possible usage areas and realization options. Table
I provides an overview of the options we investigated
together with the objectives and major outcomes of
these studies. We investigated single-cell and multi-
cell scenarios including vertical distributions of UEs.
The single-cell analysis showed that 3D beamform-
ing helps to maintain coverage if higher frequency
bands are applied from the same eNB sites. In a
multi-cell environment, 3D beamforming improved
cell edge user throughput and spectral efficiency. We
also investigated different types of interference
avoidance strategies with dynamic vertical beam pat-
tern adaptation. At their simplest, our investigations
focused only on the locations of the UEs. More
advanced schemes also considered coordination with
adjacent cells that involved inter-cell communication
of feedback information and scheduling decisions.
Our simulations showed that 3D beamforming can
provide substantial gains. Even very simple schemes
and practical approximations of the exact vertical
main lobe steering with only few fixed downtilts
showed reasonable performance improvements. This
was an important breakthrough for substantially
relaxing the hardware and processing requirements
that would be necessary in order to deploy practical
systems.
Once flexible antenna concepts and hardware
became available, practical application also became
feasible. Using this newly available advanced antenna
hardware, we analyzed the properties of 3D beam-
forming in a real propagation environment. Although
in an NLOS environment the impact of reflections
and diffraction were clearly visible, the basic behav-
ior could be verified.
54 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj
3D beamforming can be beneficial in many
deployment scenarios, especially if vertical user dis-
tributions need to be accommodated and interfer-
ence from adjacent cells needs to be reduced.
Appropriate receiver algorithms can further improve
performance even if the angular direction of the
beam does not coincide with the geometric downtilt,
as in some NLOS situations. Future research activi-
ties focused on deriving more accurate vertical chan-
nel models and developing receiver algorithms
adapted to 3D beamforming capabilities would help
to unleash the full potential of 3D beamforming in
each relevant deployment scenario.
Acknowledgements
Technical discussions, evaluation methods, tech-
nical background, provision of hardware platforms
and conducting of measurements were valuable
inputs for the authors to perform this research work.
Therefore the authors would like to acknowledge the
contributions of Guenther Herzog, Stefan Merck,
Holger Heimpel and Juergen Otterbach from Bell
Labs in Stuttgart; Gunther Thielecke from Bell Labs
in Berlin; Dmitry Chizhik and Jonathan Ling from
Bell Labs in Crawford Hill; and Florian Pivit and
Frank Mullany from Bell Labs in Dublin.
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a Multicell Scenario,” Proc. 17th Internat. ITG
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[8] H. Halbauer, S. Saur, J. Koppenborg, and
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(Manuscript approved February 2013)
HARDY HALBAUER is a research engineer in the Access
Technologies domain at Bell Labs in
Stuttgart, Germany. He received a
diploma degree in electrical engineering
from the Technical University of
Karlsruhe, and worked on physical layer
algorithms and ASIC development for
high capacity microwave links during his early years
with the company. He joined the Alcatel Research &
Innovation Center 18 years ago and since has been
involved in various German national and European
research projects and conducting research on physical
layer design for different wireline and wireless
communication systems. His current research activities
focus on multi-antenna system design and signal
processing for advanced wireless communication
systems, primarily on 3D beamforming and
interference avoidance techniques.
STEPHAN SAUR is a research engineer in the Access
Technologies domain at Bell Labs in
Stuttgart, Germany. He received diploma
and Ph.D. degrees in electrical
engineering from the University of
Stuttgart, and worked for five years as a
research assistant at the University’s Institute of
Communications, where his focus was on investigating
advanced iterative channel estimation techniques for
the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
(UMTS). He has been with Alcatel-Lucent for seven
years. His current research involved physical and MAC-
layer algorithms and system concepts for broadband
wireless access schemes like LTE and its evolutions, as
well as efficient machine-to-machine communications.
He has been involved in several European funded
research projects.
JOHANNES KOPPENBORG is a team leader in Bell Labs’
Access Technologies research domain in
Stuttgart, Germany. He joined Alcatel SEL
Research after receiving his diploma
degree in physics from the University of
Bochum. He contributed to the
development of new production processes
for optical single mode fibers, optical switches and
waveguides, and dense wavelength division
multiplexing (DWDM) components, and later was
responsible for the characterization of optical
components. Ten years ago, he joined the Radio
Research Department in Stuttgart as team leader for
integration and characterization of new 3G radio
systems. He has worked on smart antenna systems,
High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA), LTE and LTE-
Advanced. He is currently responsible for the wireless
systems lab and field trial team with special emphasis
on 3D beamforming. He has authored or co-authored
more than 20 papers in journals and international
conferences. He is member of the German Physical
Society and the Alcatel Lucent Technical Academy.
DOI: 10.1002/bltj Bell Labs Technical Journal 55
CORNELIS HOEK is a research engineer in the Access
Technologies domain at Bell Labs in
Stuttgart, Germany. He received a cum
laude diploma degree in electrical
engineering from the Technical University
of Delft in The Netherlands. His early
work, at SEL in Stuttgart, included
development of digital signal processing hardware and
software for the S12 digital switching system. Later
joining the Alcatel SEL Research Center, he was
responsible for the system design, implementation and
integration of array processor and DSP systems in
various projects including an Integrated Services Digital
Network (ISDN) videophone product, an HDTV codec
demonstrator, and GSM/DCS1800, Wideband Code
Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), and LTE smart
antenna demonstrators. He was named a distinguished
member of the Alcatel Technical Academy. His current
focus is on the implementation of a 3D beamforming
demonstrator and field trials with 3D beamforming. ◆

56 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj