Power Consumption and Energy Efficiency of Mid-Band XL-MIMO: Modeling, Scaling Laws, and Performance Insights

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the power consumption and energy efficiency of mid-band XL-MIMO systems, proposing models and scaling laws that provide insights into system design and demonstrate the potential for energy-efficient deployments.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive power consumption model and analytical framework for energy efficiency, specifically tailored for mid-band XL-MIMO systems, including new scaling laws and performance comparisons.

Findings

Mid-band XL-MIMO outperforms other multi-antenna technologies in energy efficiency.

The proposed models accurately predict throughput and energy efficiency.

Numerical results confirm the effectiveness of the analytical framework.

Abstract

Mid-band extra-large-scale multiple-input multiple-output (XL-MIMO), emerging as a critical enabler for future communication systems, is expected to deliver significantly higher throughput by leveraging the extended bandwidth and enlarged antenna aperture. However, power consumption remains a significant concern due to the enlarged system dimension, underscoring the need for thorough investigations into efficient system design and deployment. To this end, an in-depth study is conducted on mid-band XL-MIMO systems. Specifically, a comprehensive power consumption model is proposed, encompassing the power consumption of major hardware components and signal processing procedures, while capturing the influence of key system parameters. Considering typical near-field propagation characteristics, closed-form approximations of throughput are derived, providing an analytical framework for assessing energy efficiency (EE). Based on the proposed framework, the scaling law of EE with respect to key system configurations is derived, offering valuable insights for system design. Subsequently, extensions and comparisons are conducted among representative multi-antenna technologies, demonstrating the superiority of mid-band XL-MIMO in EE. Extensive numerical results not only verify the tightness of the throughput analysis but also validate the EE evaluations, unveiling the potential of energy-efficient mid-band XL-MIMO systems.