Comparing ray tracing based MU-CoMP-MIMO channel predictions with channel sounding measurements

MIMO technology is ready for deployment in commercial cellular networks in the very near future. Thus, the need of incorporating this technology into radio network planning and optimization rises dramatically for network operators. The main question to answer is how accurate MIMO channel models reflect the real MIMO channel. A good tool to learn about MIMO channel characteristics is channel sounding measurements. A deterministic channel model already used in high-capacity urban areas for network planning and optimization purposes is ray tracing. In this contribution, we verify a ray tracing channel simulator by means of channel sounding measurements in the 2.53 GHz range by comparing simulated and measured eigenvalue characteristics for various Multi-User (MU) downlink scenarios in a CoMP (Coordinated Multi-Point) environment.