Single and Multi-User Cooperative MIMO in a Measured Urban Macrocellular Environment

We study the potential benefits of cooperative multiple-input multiple-output signaling from multiple coherent base stations with one or more mobile stations in an urban macrocellular environment at 2.66 GHz. The analysis uses fully-coherent measurements of the channel from three base stations to a single mobile station equipped with four antennas. The observed channels are used to explore the gains in capacity enabled by cooperative base station signaling for point-to-point and multi-user communications. The analysis shows that for point-to-point links, the average capacity for cooperative signaling is 53% higher than that achieved for a single base station. For downlink and uplink communication with three mobile users, cooperative signaling yields average sum rate increases of 91% and 63%, respectively.