Effects of Wall Reflection on the Per-Antenna Power Distribution of ZF-Precoded ULA for Indoor mmWave MU-MIMO Transmissions

Indoor access points (APs) with large-scale antenna arrays are commonly deployed in the vicinity of a wall, where wall reflection (WR) affects the indoor electromagnetic (EM) wave propagation. In this letter, we investigate the effects of WR on the per-antenna power distribution of a transmit uniform linear array (ULA) adopting a zero-forcing (ZF) precoder. A new channel model is constructed to characterise the impact of both the line-of-sight (LOS) path and the WR path on indoor millimetre wave (mmWave) multi-user (MU) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) downlink transmissions. Specifically for the dual user equipment (UE) scenario, the ZF precoding matrix is analytically obtained and verified through simulations. The effects of WR on the per-antenna power distribution of the ZF-precoded ULA, in terms of the normalised power distribution and maximum power ratio (MPR), are evaluated through the comparisons between our proposed channel model and the pure LOS channel model. Our analytical and numerical results reveal the impact of AP configurations (the number of antennas and the AP-wall distance), multi-user spatial distribution (the angle of departure (AoD) and length of the LOS path for each user), and wall parameters (permittivity and thickness) on the power distribution across the ZF-precoded ULA. It is found that the effects of WR will exacerbate the uneven power distribution across the ZF-precoded ULA.

I. Introduction

The combination of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and millimetre wave (mmWave) technologies facilitates massive indoor high-rate wireless applications for future wireless networks by exploiting spatial multiplexing gains even in limited scattering environment [1]–[5]. While the deployment of indoor access point(s) (AP) would typically be optimised to maximise the throughput and/or coverage [6], customers may prefer to deploy the APs in positions that will not lead to inconveniencing usages of a room. A popular solution is to integrate the AP with an interior wall of the building [7]. In this sense, the interactions between the indoor electromagnetic (EM) wave propagation and the interior wall should not be neglected in the deployment of indoor APs [8], [9].