Tilt Angle Optimization in Dynamic TDD mmWave Cellular Scenarios

With the introduction of massive MIMO and directional transmissions, antenna configuration has arisen as a major factor influencing coverage and capacity in fifth generation mobile networks. In particular, mechanical tilting can yield performance advancements that cannot be achieved by purely electronic steering, due to the presence of grating lobes and antenna pattern attenuations. In this letter, the performance of mmWave cellular systems is evaluated in terms of SINR when an adjacent-channel node is interfering with an (UL) transmission. We examine a mobile scenario complete with dynamic (TDD) and highlight how the optimization of the antenna tilt angle can drastically improve the overall network performance. Antenna down-tilt can be properly optimized according to both the environment and the antenna settings, thus reducing the overall interference level. We propose a general methodology and discuss a number of important network considerations, towards an effective optimization of the tilt angle. Our evaluation makes it possible to determine the best tilting configuration to be used, according to the scenario considered.