Massive MIMO properties based on measured channels: Channel hardening, user decorrelation and channel sparsity

Three prominent features of massive MIMO are studied using channel measurements. Those features are extensively exploited in signal processing methods for massive MIMO and have been only partially, or not at all, validated. First, channel hardening is characterized as a function of the number of antennas. Second, user decorrelation is evaluated as a function of the distance between users. At last, the channel angular spread, proposed as a basis for pilot contamination and frequency division duplexing operation, is assessed. The whole study is based on two measurement campaigns involving a base station with 64 antennas and 128 antennas.

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