MIMO Technologies for the Wireless Future

Future wireless systems are expected to support high data rates of 1 Gbit/s or more in a variety of scenarios. A key technology in order to achieve the required high spectral efficiency is the application of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) techniques, which exploit spatial diversity, array gain or spatial multiplexing gain. Another source of diversity - inherent to wireless systems- is that of the multiuser diversity. Multiuser (MU) MIMO algorithms combine both MIMO gains with multiuser diversity benefits. Although MU MIMO techniques have been extensively studied and were shown to provide considerable average cell throughput gains, they often prove inadequate to cope with intercell interference and can only offer poor cell edge performance. Network coordination (multisite MIMO) can be applied in this case, which can achieve significant improvements for the users including those at the cell edge, based on coordinated transmission and reception by multiple base stations. In this paper we present an overview of the most promising MIMO technologies and discuss their relative merits and requirements.