HSDPA MIMO System Performance in Macro Cell Network

This paper studies the performance of dual-stream transmit antenna array (D-TxAA) technique in a macro cell high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) network. 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) responsible of the standardization of 3G systems selected D-TxAA as the multiple input-multiple output (MIMO) scheme for HSDPA in 3GPP specification Release 7. MIMO transmission doubles the theoretical peak data rate of HSDPA from 14.4 Mbps to 28.8 Mbps. However, successful reception of dual stream MIMO transmissions requires good signal conditions. Thus, employing MIMO is generally considered beneficial only in small cells due to the fact that in a macro cell network the channel conditions are seldom favourable to MIMO usage because the distances may be large between the base station and the mobile terminals. The objective of this paper is to study the actual impact of D-TxAA MIMO technique to user and system throughput in a macro cell HSDPA network. Using dynamic system simulations the performance of MIMO transmission is compared to a scenario where only conventional receive diversity is employed at the user entities.