Analysis of a LTE-Based Textile Massive MIMO Proposal for Public Safety Networks

The use of current narrowband Private Mobile Radio (PMR) systems, such as Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) still has significant shortcomings for public safety networks. In disaster situations, for first responder emergency services to communicate more effectively, the exchange of multimedia information (e.g. high-resolution images) could really help. Due to this fact, LTE technology is postulated as the choice for public safety broadband communication systems. In this paper, we examine a proposal based on two-hop links that seeks to reach locations with low or null coverage and to achieve a physical layer improvement. Such a solution is carried out by combining some LTE features provided by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) with the use of a wearable massive MIMO solution formed by a large textile array directly implemented at the end user.