Massive MIMO: Exploring the Reasons behind the Growing Investments in this Modern Digital Communication Technology

Key takeaways

• Introduction
• Role of massive MIMO in deployment of 5G services
• Advantages of massive MIMO over conventional digital communication technologies

A vital component of modern wireless communication is the digital transmission technology that ensures the smooth passage of data over long distances. To facilitate this, several technologies have been developed over the years, one of which is MIMO i.e., multiple input multiple output technology. Multiple input multiple output is an antenna technology that, as the name suggests, uses multiple antennas at the transmission and receiver end. By working together in tandem and transmitting data over multiple paths, these antennas help enhance the quality of wireless transmission, optimize the data transmissions, and reduce errors. Also, since multiple antennas are used, the failure of one antenna doesn’t significantly alter the functioning of the system. Furthermore, MIMO technology creates several versions of the same data parcel so that their transmission can happen without any fading.

Why has the demand for Massive MIMO technology increased with the growing adoption of 5G services?

In the past few years, digital communication experts have been working to improve the outcomes offered by MIMO systems. To achieve this goal, massive MIMO technology has been developed that acts as an upgrade over the regular MIMO system. The main differentiating factor between Massive MIMO and conventional MIMO is the number of antennas that are used at the base station. In this new system, several hundreds or thousands of antennas are used at the base station for transmitting and receiving the data, as opposed to a few antennas in conventional MIMO.

Massive MIMO becomes crucial for the success of new-age communication technologies such as 5G. 5G networks have extremely high energy and data-carrying capacity which is why they offer excellent Internet speeds. However, the downside of 5G technology is that their range is quite limited. In such a scenario, the role of massive MIMO industry has become important to enhance the spectral efficiency, reliability, and range of the 5G communication links.

To achieve high spectral efficiency, the new version of MIMO makes use of certain advanced techniques and principles. One such advanced technique is beamforming; this technique is used to directly send a signal to the intended receiver without any interference from other users. Beamforming combines principles of amplitude control and phase shifting to generate a signal that can travel straight to the user. Another technique used by massive MIMO is that of precoding; using this technique, orthogonal spatial channels are created between the user and base station to send multiple data parcels simultaneously over large distances.

Why is massive MIMO technology better than other conventional data communication systems?

Naturally, the number of users that can be connected using upgraded MIMO is much higher than what conventional MIMO allows. Thus, the spectrum that is allocated gets used optimally, thereby increasing the spectral efficiency of the system. Upgraded MIMO is also crucial from the standpoint of making Internet services available to all. This technology, due to the deployment of numerous antennas, has a much wider coverage than traditional MIMO. Furthermore, this technology ensures that even users stationed at the edge of the network get strong and reliable signals. Due to this, the instances of dropped calls and interruptions are reduced drastically. Thus, upgraded MIMO technology becomes a perfect solution for remote and rural areas where a large population is disconnected from the outside world.

Also, since the upgraded MIMO technology makes use of principles like beamforming, the energy required to transmit a signal to an intended location is much less than what is required in conventional MIMO. Thus, the overall power consumption of massive MIMO systems is quite low as compared to regular data transmission technologies. The average sector throughput, peak sector throughput, and cell edge throughput also improve substantially with the use of upgraded MIMO technology.

To sum it up, with the advent of advanced technologies such as 4G, the need for a robust digital communication system was felt. As a result, multiple input multiple out (MIMO) systems were developed. However, as the number of users has increased exponentially in the past few years and 5G services are also being deployed globally, an upgrade of the existing MIMO technology was necessary. Massive MIMO helps address this demand of providing a stable, efficient, and powerful signal over large areas.

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