How is MIMO is advancing 5G?

Millions of people across the globe are now using smartphones not just for their communication needs but also for work and entertainment.

12:28 14 December 2017

According to a study, mobile phones are now the most used devices in downloading and streaming media. This growing need for electromagnetic bandwidth is the reason why the mobile telecommunication sector is developing 5G, the next generation mobile network.

 

One method for increasing 5G wireless spectral efficiency is massive MIMO (multiple input, multiple output).

 

Jeremy Twaits, a senior technical marketing engineer with National Instruments (NI), a key partner in the winning project in the data and connectivity category of the 2017 Collaborate to Innovate Awards, said: “Massive MIMO works by having multiple antennas performing both input and output, and they can simultaneously transmit signals to multiple users within the same portion of spectrum. Bristol began researching this about four years ago, and built up this testbed to figure out whether massive MIMO was a feasible technology for incorporating into 5G networks. They also experimented with what capability could be achieved, what level of spectrum efficiency was possible, what were the characteristics of actually sending data from multiple antennas across the air, and how it would deal with interference, with users moving around, and whether it could keep the data rates up.”