The Application of MIMO Technology in Mobile WiMAX Network

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Technical Research

The Application of MIMO Technology in Mobile WiMAX

Network
Prepared by: Xieguozhu Huawei Technologies Co.,Ltd.

MIMO Multiple Input Multiple Output Technology, as the great breakthrough in the
telecommunication industry, has been grabbing the attention of the vast researchers all
around the world. This article discusses and analyzes the application of MIMO
technology in the mobile WiMAX network, from the angle of the improvement of network
coverage, the enhancement of system capacity, the reduction of network construction
cost and etc, with the reference of Huawei system simulation and field test results.

In the recent years, the number of bandwidth subscribers in the traditional wired network
is increasing significantly, so is the 3G mobile network subscribers. The increasing
requirement of the market about the mobile bandwidth usage provides the wireless
broadband access technology an enormous room of expansion.

WiMAX 802.16e has been chosen by more and more operator as the primary access
technology for the fixed and mobile broadband network, and hence to provide the
abundance of high-broadband multimedia services. This phenomenon imposed the great
challenges to the wireless network operators where they have to ameliorate their network
capacity, subscribers throughput, and network coverage quality, in order to establish and
maintain their business model. Nevertheless, the application of MIMO technology helps
the WiMAX 802.16e to confront the challenges and hence to expand the WiMAX network
development.
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MIMO indicates the multiple antennas in the transmitter and receiver sides where the
signal is transmitted and received through the multiple transmitters and receivers and in
the end, improve the service quality of every subscriber. From the point of view of a
traditional single antenna system, MIMO technology can improve the spectral efficiency
significantly, and thus enable the system to transmit the higher rate of data services using
the limited wireless bandwidth. The figure below shows the MIMO system with N
transmitters and M receivers:

MIMO System with N Transmitters and M Receivers

WiMAX 802.16e defines 3 types of MIMO technology, which are STTD Space Time
Transmit Diversity, SMSpatial Multiplexingand Adaptive MIMO Switch, and 3 types
of encoding matrixes, which are Matrix A, Matrix B and Matrix C. The WiMAX 802.16
system of Huawei are currently support MIMO Matrix A, and will support MIMO Matrix B
and MIMO Matrix C in the September of 2008.

MIMO technology can be implemented together with OFDMA technology in the WiMAX
802.16e system. This implementation can enhance the network coverage significantly
and improve the WiMAX system capacity, and hence reduce the cost of network
construction and maintenance.

The Perfect Integration of MIMO & OFDMA

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MIMO can be implemented in all of the wireless communication technologies. The perfect
integration of MIMO and OFDMA Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access
enable the advantages of MIMO technology to be implemented more explicitly.

MIMO system can overcome the multi-path loss, but still helpless in the frequency
selective fading, where the other communication systems normally implement the
balancing technology to solve the frequency selective fading in the MIMO system. On the
other hand, the OFDMA technology can overcome the frequency selective fading. The
mobile communication of next generation requires the technology with high spectral
efficiency, but the OFDMA has a limited capability in enhancing the spectral efficiency.

Hence, by integrating the MIMO technology with the OFDMA technology, the spectral
efficiency can be enhanced without increasing the system bandwidth. In conclusion, the
integration of MIMO and OFDMA technologies can provide the data transmission with
higher rate, and also improve the system reliability and stability thorough the diversity. In
addition, OFDMA has the strong ability to overcome the multi-path inference because of
its low coding rate and the embedded time guard interval, where the system would not be
interfered by the inter-coding interference provided the multi-path latency is smaller than
the guard interval. This can enable the single frequency network which utilizing the
broadband OFDMA and MIMO system to overcome the shadow fading, and finally to
realize the seamless network coverage.

Enhance the Network Coverage Significantly

The transmission loss of WiMAX 802.16e system is higher than the other mobile network

systems due to its higher frequency band used. Hence, how to enhance the network
coverage becomes one of the great challenges WiMAX encounters. And here, MIMO
technology indeed helps a lot in enhancing the network coverage. For the MIMO
technology under STTD model, the cell coverage radius can be improved through the
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STTD gain; For the MIMO technology under SM model, the cell coverage radius can be
improved indirectly through STTD gain from the enhancement of cell edge data rate; For
the MIMO technology under the Adaptive MIMO Switch model, its coverage gain is
similar with the gain of STTDs because the cell edge works under the STTD model.
From the Huawei system simulation result,

the system of 2T2R 2 Transmitters 2

Receivers MIMO has a coverage gain of 2 ~ 10dB compared with SISOSingle Input
Single Outputunder the STTD and Adaptive MIMO Switch models, where the coverage
radius improves 5090; under the SM model, the cell edge can obtain the coverage
gain of 3~5dB indirectly. On the other hand, MIMO can enhance the cell edge coverage
probability as well.

In August of year 2007, Huawei incorporate with a local operator JCOM in Tokyo, Japan,
to run the field test of MIMO on-site implementation effect. The field test results show
that, the coverage radius of WiMAX 802.16e system can be enhanced by utilizing MIMO
Matrix A technology, and hence the number of base station needed for the network
construction can be reduced in a large extent.

Improve the System Capacity

WiMAX 802.16e system provides a high data throughput with high mobility, which enable
the subscribers to stay online all the time, and enjoy the broadband experience even at
the mobility situation. The MIMO technology under the SM model can double the system
throughput and spectral efficiency, and double the single user data peak rate as well; For
the MIMO technology under the STTD model, the system throughput and spectral
efficiency can be improved by utilizing the high modulation scheme; For the MIMO
technology under the Adaptive MIMO Switch model, the cell center works on the SM
model while the cell edge works on the STTD model, hence the improvement of system
throughput and spectral efficiency are between the effect of STTD and SM. The
implementation of OFDMA and MIMO enable the WiMAX 802.16e system to enhance the
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spectral efficiency up to the maximum extent and to provide the high quality mobile video
and television services which requires a high speed and wide bandwidth.
From the Huawei system simulation result, it shows that the system throughput can be
enhanced around 30 ~ 60% after implementing MIMO 2x2 Matrix B technology, and at
the same time, double the data peak rate of subscriber.

Reduce the Cost of Network Construction and Maintenance

In the dense urban and CBD areas, there are more high-end subscribers and hence the
requirement of system throughput and data peak is higher as well, which may lead to the
capacity-limited phenomenon. However, after utilizing the MIMO Matrix B technology, the
WiMAX system downlink throughput was improved 55%, while uplink throughput was
improved up to 33%, and in the capacity-limited cases, the number of base station can
be reduced around 25%. MIMO has more advantages of the capacity gain in the city
areas compared with the other multiple antenna technologies, such as AAS Adaptive
Antenna System, or Advanced Antenna System, which helps a lot in reducing the cost
of high traffic network construction or network expansion.

In the cases of coverage-limited, the coverage radius can be improved at least 50% and
the coverage area of a single can be improved approaching 100% by utilizing the MIMO
technology. This helps to save up to 40% ~ 60% number of base station, and also helps
to provide a low-cost network construction solution in the earlier stage in suburban and
rural areas by providing the biggest coverage with least number of base station.

On the other hand, from the installation and maintenance wise, AAS requires the antenna
with at least 4 beamwidth and bigger space. AAS antenna also requires more feeder
compared to the traditional antenna, and this will lead to more installation works and
wider cable rack. Besides, AAS antenna weight more than the common antenna, which
require the tougher antenna installation work, and its bulky volume performs weak in the
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areas with strong wind due to its poor counter-wind ability. MIMO requires less number of
antenna compared with AAS, where one dual-polarization antenna with 45 degree is
sufficient to support a 2x2 MIMO technology, hence it has a lower requirement in antenna
installation work, antenna space consumption, in addition, its easier to be planned and
maintained, and hence it saves the cost of antenna installation and maintenance
effectively.

Conclusion

The rapid development of broadband data subscribers and mobile communication

subscribers, the trend of moving from narrow band voice communication to broadband
high speed data communication, the way to improve the network capacity in a fixed
spectral resources, and the way of enhancing the network coverage with the fixed
number of base station, are the main problems need to be concerned in the future
communication network construction. WiMAX 802.16e system introduces the MIMO
technology, with the integration of OFDMA, to enhance the spectral efficiency and
improve the network coverage and capacity at the same time, by strengthen the system
differentiation ability in space. And finally, it can reduce the cost of network construction
and maintenance, and enable WiMAX 802.16e system to become the most competitive
wireless broadband access technology.

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