Energy Efficient Downlink mMIMO Using Dynamic Antenna and Power Adaptation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a dynamic joint antenna and power adaptation scheme for downlink mMIMO systems that enhances network energy savings while maintaining user throughput, especially under low load conditions.

Contribution

It proposes a novel adaptive scheme combining antenna and power control using CSI-RS and POLITE, improving energy efficiency in 6G mMIMO networks.

Findings

Significant energy savings in low load conditions.

Improved intra-cell interference management.

Balanced energy efficiency and user throughput.

Abstract

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) technology and its future evolutions are expected to address the high data rate demands of sixth generation (6G) communication systems. At the same time, network energy savings (NES) is essential in reducing the operational costs and meeting the sustainability goals of network operators. In this regard, we propose a dynamic scheme for joint antenna and power adaptation to improve NES from a user scheduling and resource allocation perspective. Antenna adaptation is performed using the multiple channel state information resource signal (CSI-RS) framework. Furthermore, the recently introduced transmit power-aware link adaptation scheme, referred to as POLITE for short, is used as the power adaptation technique. The proposed scheme adapts to variations in users' instantaneous traffic and channel conditions to opportunistically maximize NES while also inherently accounting for the user throughput. Numerical simulation results show that the proposed scheme consistently achieves a balance between NES and user perceived throughput (UPT) for different network load conditions. Especially in low and light load conditions, the proposed scheme significantly improves the intra-cell interference and boosts the overall NES, while ensuring that UPT is unaffected.