Channel Hardening in Massive MIMO – A Measurement Based Analysis

Wireless-controlled robots, cars and other critical applications are in need of technologies that offer high reliability and low latency. Massive MIMO, Multiple-Input Multiple-Output, is a key technology for the upcoming 5G systems and is one part of the solution to increase the reliability. More specifically, when increasing the number of base station antennas in a massive MIMO systems the channel variations decrease and the so-called channel hardening effect appears, which makes the channel seem more deterministic.

In this talk we discuss we discuss channel hardening effects based on indoor channel measurements, and present practical implications and insights derived from the measurements.