5G SON for MIMO

Joe Thome
Sr. Director Product Marketing
The Promise of 5G for Network Densification

Dense networks
Reducing the size of cells provides
a much more overall effective use
of the available spectrum

Smart antennas
5G cellular systems will leverage
smart antennas to alter the
downlink beam direction to limit
interference and increase overall
cell capacity

92 © AirHop Communications 2016

5G and MIMO Beamforming

• Closed loop MIMO requires knowledge of

the downlink RF channel to drive
scheduling decisions
• Beamforming uses symbol precoding for
each MIMO antenna to achieve spatial
coverage patterns
Multi-Cell
• Massive MIMO systems provide a large Coordination
antenna array enabling finer spatial
patterns and spatial multiplexing Small Cell UE

Measurement
• Multi-cell coordination of spatial coverage

Precoding
User Data

Channel
Channel
patterns among neighbor cells can
minimize coverage overlap and maximize
throughput UE
Scheduler Measurement
93 © AirHop Communications 2016 Reports
Real-Time Multi-Cell Coordination

• 4G Coordinated Multi-Cell Interference Management

SON – 3GPP defined parameters, e.g. RSRP, CQI
Multi-Cell – Real-time UE perspective of the interference environment
Coordination – Real-time multi-cell coordination of time and frequency radio
resources
– QoS aware interference management (traffic demand, QCI)
– Adapt when and where interference occurs (< 1sec)
– Common SON coordinating small cells from multiple vendors

• 5G Coordinated Multi-Cell MIMO Beamforming

– Extend UE measurement parameters to include MIMO
parameters – SRS, RI and PMI
– Multi-cell coordination of coverage patterns along with radio
resources in time and frequency

94 © AirHop Communications 2016

Multi-Cell Coordinated Beamforming

Cell 1 UE CQI è 15

Cell 2 UE CQI è 1

95 © AirHop Communications 2016

Multi-Cell Coordinated Beamforming

Cell 1 UE CQI è 15

Cell 2 UE CQI è 1

96 © AirHop Communications 2016

Multi-Cell Coordinated Beamforming

Cell 1 UE CQI è 15

Cell 2 UE CQI è 5

97 © AirHop Communications 2016

Multi-Cell Coordinated Beamforming

Cell 1 UE CQI è 15

Cell 2 UE CQI è 13

98 © AirHop Communications 2016

Parting Thoughts

• Coordination of MIMO spatial coverage Multi-Cell

SON Coordination
selection among neighbors can reduce
interference, helping achieve 5G service levels
Backplane/Fabric
• Spatial coverage coordination works in concert
with existing time and frequency coordination
enabling a mix and match of small cell coverage

vBBU

vBBU

vBBU

vBBU

vBBU

vBBU
approaches
• Platform flexibility is essential to move
coordination processing closer to small cell or Fronthaul
virtual baseband unit in the case of SDN/NFV

RRU

RRU

RRU

RRU

RRU

RRU
• More work ahead when looking at coordination
of massive MIMO cells with neighbor small
cells

99 © AirHop Communications 2016

Thank You