Wireless Mobile Distributed-MIMO for 6G

The paper proposes a new architecture for Distributed MIMO (D-MIMO) in which the base station (BS) jointly transmits with wireless mobile nodes to serve users (UEs) within a cell for 6G communication systems. The novelty of the architecture lies in the wireless mobile nodes participating in joint D-MIMO transmission with the BS (referred to as D-MIMO nodes), which are themselves users on the network. The D-MIMO nodes establish wireless connections with the BS, are generally near the BS, and ideally benefit from higher SNR links and better connections with edge-located UEs. These D-MIMO nodes can be existing handset UEs, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or Vehicular UEs. Since the D-MIMO nodes are users sharing the access channel, the proposed architecture operates in two phases. First, the BS communicates with the D-MIMO nodes to forward data for the joint transmission, and then the BS and D-MIMO nodes jointly serve the UEs through coherent D-MIMO operation. Capacity analysis of this architecture is studied based on realistic 3GPP channel models, and the paper demonstrates that despite the two-phase operation, the proposed architecture enhances the system’s capacity compared to the baseline where the BS communicates directly with the UEs.