Submit to Electronics Review for Electronics Propose a Special Issue

Journal Browser

Smart Antennas and MIMO Communications

Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Microwave and Wireless Communications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2017) | Viewed by 74033

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Hamid Bahrami

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Associate Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA
Interests: MIMO Systems; multi-user communications; cognitive radio; molecular and nanoscale communications; compressed sensing; smart antennas and array signal processing

Dr. Xu Zhu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Reader, Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GJ, UK
Interests: MIMO; mm wave; cooperative communications; resource allocation; cognitive radio

Dr. Nicholas J. Kirsch

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA
Interests: multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications systems; wireless channels; antenna arrays; cognitive radios; spectrum sensing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The use of multi-antenna transceivers in communications systems to achieve high transmission rate and reliability has been the subject of extensive studies over the past two decades. Multi-antenna communication has been an integrative part of current wireless technologies, and will play a key role in the design and development of 5G networks. Nevertheless, to keep up with the rapidly increasing demand for high-speed data applications, more innovative and unconventional approaches that deal with efficient use of such transceivers are of high interest. This Special Issue is intended to reflect the current advances in the area of smart antennas and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications.

We invite researchers to submit their original research or review articles that are concerned with novel techniques, models, analysis tools, and experimental results in this area. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

Recent advances in MIMO signal processing
Large-scale and massive MIMO systems
Signal design, detection and estimation techniques for MIMO communications
Recent advances in antenna array design, smart antennas and beamforming
MIMO antenna systems and channel modeling
Multiuser and cooperative communication systems
Millimeter wave and Ultra-wideband MIMO communications
Small cells and heterogeneous MIMO networks
Full-duplex and interference cancelation and management techniques
Cognitive radio for MIMO communications

Dr. Hamid Bahrami
Dr. Xu Zhu
Dr. Nicholas J. Kirsch
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Electronics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

MIMO Systems
Smart Antennas and Beamforming
Multiuser and Multi-carrier Communications
Large-scale MIMO
Small Cells and Heterogeneous Networks
Millimeter Wave Communications
Full-Duplex Systems
Cooperative Communication
Cognitive Radio and Networks

Published Papers (11 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

Jump to: Review

11 pages, 918 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Improving the Propagation Environment by Using Tunable Passive Repeater

by Yuta Takahashi and Naoki Honma

Electronics 2018, 7(2), 12; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics7020012 - 25 Jan 2018

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 5086

Abstract

This paper presents a novel passive repeater that achieves enhanced Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) communication between two isolated terminals. The novel aspect of this work is an avoidance of the key-hole effect, which is normally caused by a repeater since all of the signal goes through the same point. Moreover, our idea uses electrical control, which is simply realized by only varactor diodes on the antennas, and this idea provides fast and low-cost control of the MIMO channel. This configuration allows the passive repeater to control the MIMO channel. MIMO channel capacity is maximized by controlling all repeater elements individually. The effectiveness of the passive repeater in enhancing MIMO channel capacity is verified by experiments. First of all, we obtained propagation data from field experiment, and propagation characteristics were evaluated using equations. The results show that the 10% value of MIMO channel capacity can be improved by 2.92 bits/s/Hz in an indoor propagation environment, which well confirms the effectiveness of the proposed method. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Antennas and MIMO Communications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

15 pages, 1216 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Laboratory Experiment of Blind Adaptive Array with Subcarrier Transmission Power Assignment in Spectrum Superposing Scenarios

by Hideya So, Kazuki Maruta and Kouhei Suzaki

Electronics 2018, 7(1), 7; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics7010007 - 11 Jan 2018

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4345

Abstract

This paper experimentally validates the basic feasibility of our proposed blind adaptive array (BAA) with subcarrier transmission power assignment (STPA) scheme using a prototype. The proposed STPA-BAA enables spectrum superposing without any channel state information between two different wireless communication systems: employing STPA-BAA to the secondary system, inter-system interference from/to the primary system can be suppressed. Exploiting the characteristics of constant modulus algorithm (CMA) and power inversion (PI), the secondary transmitter provides two levels of power density for each subcarrier: high and low levels. It enables the secondary receiver to suppress interference with almost the same level of the desired signal. It is also effective in reducing interference to the primary receiver that has no interference suppression function. This paper conducts laboratory experiments of spectrum superposition in two multicarrier systems by wired setup. Though the practical performance of STPA-BAA is limited due to the quantization level or dynamic range of the transceiver, effectiveness of the proposed scheme is confirmed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Antennas and MIMO Communications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

544 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Collision Detection Method Using Self Interference Cancelation for Random Access Multiuser MIMO

by Kazuma Ando, Kentaro Nishimori, Ryochi Kataoka, Takefumi Hiraguri, Yoshiaki Morino and Tsutomu Mitsui

Electronics 2018, 7(1), 1; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics7010001 - 22 Dec 2017

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4570

Abstract

This paper proposes an interference detection method for multiuser-multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO) transmission, which utilizes periodical preamble signals in the frequency domain and the concept of full-duplex transmission when assuming idle antennas at the access point (AP) in MU-MIMO. In the propose method, collision detection (CD) of MU-MIMO is achieved by utilizing asynchronous MU-MIMO called random access MU-MIMO. In random access MU-MIMO, several antennas that are not used for the transmission exist, due to asynchronous MU-MIMO. Hence, idle antennas at the AP can receive preamble signals while the transmit antennas at the AP transmit the preamble signals: this procedure is regarded as full-duplex transmission, which cancels the self-interference between AP antennas. The interference can be detected by subtracting the short preamble signal, which is multiplied by the estimated channel response using the received signal after the FFT processing. Moreover, we utilize dual polarization to reduce the mutual coupling between transmit and receive antennas at the AP. Through a computer simulation, it is shown that the proposed method can successfully detect collision from other user terminals (UTs) with OFDM signals when the interfering power from the interfering user terminal (IT) is greater than the noise power. In addition, the interfering power from IT at the AP and the desired user terminal (DT) is measured in an actual indoor environment, and the possibility of using the proposed method at the AP is discussed by using the measurement results. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Antennas and MIMO Communications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

478 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Performance Evaluation of Downlink Multi-Beam Massive MIMO with Simple Transmission Scheme at Both Base and Terminal Stations

by Shota Ogawa, Kentaro Nishimori, Ryotaro Taniguchi, Tsutomu Mitsui and Takefumi Hiraguri

Electronics 2017, 6(4), 100; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics6040100 - 21 Nov 2017

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 6224

Abstract

Multi-beam massive multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) configurations that utilize high-power beam selection in the analog parts and blind algorithms such as the constant modulus algorithm (CMA), which do not require channel state information (CSI), in the digital parts, have been proposed in the literature to improve the transmission rates and efficiency. In this paper, we evaluate the transmission performance in the downlink, with simple control at the base station (BS) and user terminal (UTs), for massive MIMO transmissions. Through computer simulations, it is shown that the analog multi-beam selection at the BS and the application of CMA at the UT with two antennas can effectively realize transmissions with high-order modulation schemes. In addition, the weight update switching by the CMA is proposed in order to obtain fast and stable performance with a realistic data size. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Antennas and MIMO Communications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

524 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effectiveness of Implicit Beamforming with Large Number of Antennas Using Calibration Technique in Multi-User MIMO System

by Kentaro Nishimori, Takefumi Hiraguri, Tsutomu Mitsui and Hiroyoshi Yamada

Electronics 2017, 6(4), 91; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics6040091 - 24 Oct 2017

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 6324

Abstract

This paper examines the effectiveness of implicit beamforming (IBF), which enables transmission without channel state information (CSI) feedback in multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems with a large number of antennas. First, we explain why CSI feedback from terminal stations to the base station produces a very large overhead. A calibration technique is then introduced, which compensates for the difference between the complex amplitudes of the transmitters and receivers to facilitate CSI-feedback-free beamforming; this technique is called IBF. The efficacy of this calibration technique is demonstrated by measuring the amplitude and phase errors obtained using a 16-element array testbed and by performing a channel capacity evaluation. Finally, the throughput under IEEE802.11ac-based massive MIMO transmission, both with and without CSI feedback, is obtained in terms of the medium access control efficiency. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Antennas and MIMO Communications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

3322 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Multidimensional-DSP Beamformers Using the ROACH-2 FPGA Platform

by Vishwa Seneviratne, Arjuna Madanayake and Len T. Bruton

Electronics 2017, 6(3), 49; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics6030049 - 01 Jul 2017

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 6428

Abstract

Antenna array-based multi-dimensional infinite-impulse response (IIR) digital beamformers are employed in a multitude of radio frequency (RF) applications ranging from electronically-scanned radar, radio telescopes, long-range detection and target tracking. A method to design 3D IIR beam filters using 2D IIR beam filters is described. A cascaded 2D IIR beam filter architecture is proposed based on systolic array architecture as an alternative for an existing radar application. Differential-form transfer function and polyphase structures are employed in the design to gain an increase in the speed of operation to gigahertz range. The feasibility of practical implementation of a 4-phase polyphase 2D IIR beam filter is explored. A digital hardware prototype is designed, implemented and tested using a ROACH-2 Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) platform fitted with a Xilinx Virtex-6 SX475T FPGA chip and multi-input analog-to-digital converters (ADC) boards set to a maximum sampling rate of 960 MHz. The article describes a method to build a 3D IIR beamformer using polyphase structures. A comparison of technical specifications of an existing radar application based on phased-array and the proposed 3D IIR beamformer is also explained to illustrate the proposed method to be a better alternative for such applications. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Antennas and MIMO Communications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

4851 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Improved Cell Search for mmWave Cellular Networks Using Deterministic Scanning Algorithm with Directional Array Antenna

by Toan Khanh Vo Dai, Ozlem Kilic and Hang Liu

Electronics 2017, 6(2), 42; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics6020042 - 26 May 2017

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 6815

Abstract

Millimeter Wave (mmWave) communication is considered as an enabling technology for the next generation of cellular networks because it offers much larger bandwidth and higher data rate than the current lower-frequency cellular systems to satisfy the exponential growth of mobile data demand. High gain directional antennas are needed to overcome high propagation losses in mmWave bands. However, the reliance on highly directional antennas will result in a more complicated initial cell search procedure since both base station and mobile device have to look for each other over a large space to establish the link. This paper focuses on analyzing the performance of the directional cell search procedure where the base stations periodically transmit signals in a set of optimal directional patterns to scan the coverage area. The mobile terminals detect the signals from the base station using the Generalized Likelihood Ratio Test (GLRT). The results show that with an appropriate scanning scheme, the use of directional antennas can outperform their omnidirectional counterparts in terms of signal detection performance as well as total time required. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Antennas and MIMO Communications)

► Show Figures

Graphical abstract

1035 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Full-Diversity QO-STBC Technique for Large-Antenna MIMO Systems

by Kelvin Anoh, Godfrey Okorafor, Bamidele Adebisi, Ali Alabdullah, Steve Jones and Raed Abd-Alhameed

Electronics 2017, 6(2), 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics6020037 - 11 May 2017

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 6761

Abstract

The need to achieve high data rates in modern telecommunication systems, such as 5G standard, motivates the study and development of large antenna and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. This study introduces a large antenna-order design of MIMO quasi-orthogonal space-time block code (QO-STBC) system that achieves better signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and bit-error ratio (BER) performances than the conventional QO-STBCs with the potential for massive MIMO (mMIMO) configurations. Although some earlier MIMO standards were built on orthogonal space-time block codes (O-STBCs), which are limited to two transmit antennas and data rates, the need for higher data rates motivates the exploration of higher antenna configurations using different QO-STBC schemes. The standard QO-STBC offers a higher number of antennas than the O-STBC with the full spatial rate. Unfortunately, also, the standard QO-STBCs are not able to achieve full diversity due to self-interference within their detection matrices; this diminishes the BER performance of the QO-STBC scheme. The detection also involves nonlinear processing, which further complicates the system. To solve these problems, we propose a linear processing design technique (which eliminates the system complexity) for constructing interference-free QO-STBCs and that also achieves full diversity using Hadamard modal matrices with the potential for mMIMO design. Since the modal matrices that orthogonalize QO-STBC are not sparse, our proposal also supports O-STBCs with a well-behaved peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) and better BER. The results of the proposed QO-STBC outperform other full diversity techniques including Givens-rotation and the eigenvalue decomposition (EVD) techniques by 15 dB for both MIMO and multiple-input single-output (MISO) antenna configurations at

10^{- 3}

BER. The proposed interference-free QO-STBC is also implemented for

16 \times N_{R}

and

32 \times N_{R}

MIMO systems, where

N_{R} \leq 2

. We demonstrate 8, 16 and 32 transmit antenna-enabled MIMO systems with the potential for mMIMO design applications with attractive BER and PAPR performance characteristics. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Antennas and MIMO Communications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

721 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Fully Quaternion-Valued Adaptive Beamforming Based on Crossed-Dipole Arrays

by Xiang Lan and Wei Liu

Electronics 2017, 6(2), 34; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics6020034 - 27 Apr 2017

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 5481

Abstract

Based on crossed-dipole antenna arrays, quaternion-valued data models have been developed for both direction of arrival estimation and beamforming in the past. However, for almost all the models, and especially for adaptive beamforming, the desired signal is still complex-valued as in the quaternion-valued Capon beamformer. Since the complex-valued desired signal only has two components, while there are four components in a quaternion, only two components of the quaternion-valued beamformer output are used and the remaining two are simply discarded, leading to significant redundancy in its implementation. In this work, we consider a quaternion-valued desired signal and develop a fully quaternion-valued Capon beamformer which has a better performance and a much lower complexity. Furthermore, based on this full quaternion model, the robust beamforming problem is also studied in the presence of steering vector errors and a worst-case-based robust beamformer is developed. The performance of the proposed methods is verified by computer simulations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Antennas and MIMO Communications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

885 KiB

Open AccessArticle

MIMO Channel-State Estimation in the Presence of Partial Data and/or Intermittent Measurements

by Marco Donald Migliore, Daniele Pinchera, Mario Lucido, Fulvio Schettino and Gaetano Panariello

Electronics 2017, 6(2), 33; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics6020033 - 20 Apr 2017

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 5042

Abstract

We propose a method for estimating the channel matrix in MIMO communication systems from intermittent measurements based on the matrix completion technique. The method requires the minimization of the trace norm of the partially known channel matrix. The availability of fast and efficient convex minimization programs allows a numerically efficient solution of the problem. The effectiveness of the technique is numerically investigated considering different scattering environments. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Antennas and MIMO Communications)

► Show Figures

Graphical abstract

Review

Jump to: Research

725 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperReview

Massive MIMO Wireless Networks: An Overview

by Noha Hassan and Xavier Fernando

Electronics 2017, 6(3), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics6030063 - 05 Sep 2017

Cited by 85 | Viewed by 15185

Abstract

Massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems use few hundred antennas to simultaneously serve large number of wireless broadband terminals. It has been incorporated into standards like long term evolution (LTE) and IEEE802.11 (Wi-Fi). Basically, the more the antennas, the better shall be the performance. Massive MIMO systems envision accurate beamforming and decoding with simpler and possibly linear algorithms. However, efficient signal processing techniques have to be used at both ends to overcome the signaling overhead complexity. There are few fundamental issues about massive MIMO networks that need to be better understood before their successful deployment. In this paper, we present a detailed review of massive MIMO homogeneous, and heterogeneous systems, highlighting key system components, pros, cons, and research directions. In addition, we emphasize the advantage of employing millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency in the beamforming, and precoding operations in single, and multi-tier massive MIMO systems. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Antennas and MIMO Communications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

Smart Antennas and MIMO Communications

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Special Issue Information

Keywords

Published Papers (11 papers)

Research

Review

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI