Vertical Beamforming with Downtilt Optimization in Downlink Cellular Networks

In this paper, we investigate vertical beamforming with antenna downtilt optimization in downlink cellular networks. We first use Gamma distribution to approximate the achievable sum-rates with respect to the antenna downtilts. Then, based on this approximation, we first formulate an optimization to maximize system throughput and then propose a simple heuristic algorithm to find its solution. Simulation result shows that the proposed vertical beamforming with antenna downtilt optimization can significantly improve system sum-rates.