Probe selection for over-the-air test in 5G base stations with massive multiple-input multiple-output

In 5G systems, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) has been adopted in base stations (BSs) to improve spectral efficiency and coverage. The traditional conductive performance test techniques are challenging due to the unaffordable cost and high complexity when testing a large number of antennas. To solve this problem, the over-the-air (OTA) test has been presented, in which probe selection is the key to reduce the number of channel emulators and probes. In this paper, a novel artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is introduced to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of probe selection procedure. A sectoring-based multi-probe anechoic chamber (MPAC) is built to evaluate the throughput performance of massive MIMO equipped in 5G BS. In addition, link level simulation is carried out to evaluate the proposal's performance gain under the commercial network assumptions, where the average throughput of three velocity is given with different SNR region. The results suggest that OTA chamber and multi-probe wall are available not only for 5G BSs, but also for user equipments (UEs) with end-to-end communication.