Massive MIMO architecture
Techniques are disclosed relating to a massive MIMO base station architecture. In some embodiments, a base station is configured to combine signals received by multiple antennas and, for at least a subset of processing elements included in the base station, each processing element is configured to operate on a different portion of the combined signals. In these embodiments, each portion includes signals from multiple antennas. In some embodiments, the portions are different time and/or frequency portions of the combined signals. In some embodiments, this distributed processing may allow the number of antennas of the base station to scale dramatically, provide dynamic re-configurability, facilitate real-time reciprocity-based precoding, etc.
1. A base station, comprising:
a plurality of antennas;
a plurality of processing elements coupled to the plurality of antennas and configured to perform processing for wireless communications via the plurality of antennas;
an interconnect configured to form a connection for communications between ones of the plurality of processing elements;
wherein the base station is configured to combine signals received by multiple antennas of the plurality of antennas;
wherein, for at least a subset of the plurality of processing elements, each processing element is configured to operate on a different portion of the combined signals in parallel, wherein each portion includes signals from multiple antennas of the plurality of antennas; and
wherein the base station is configured to dynamically adjust, during operation and based on current operating conditions, the number of processing elements in the subset of processing elements configured to operate on different portions of the combined signals in parallel and wherein the base station is configured to dynamically adjust a size of the different portions of the combined signals operated on by each processing element in the subset of processing elements.
2. The base station of claim 1 ,
wherein, for the at least a subset of the plurality of processing elements, each processing element is configured to operate on a different frequency portion of the signals received by multiple antennas of the plurality of antennas.
3. The base station of claim 1 ,
wherein, for the at least a subset of the plurality of processing elements, each processing element is configured to operate on a different time portion of the signals received by multiple antennas of the plurality of antennas.
4. The base station of claim 1 ,
wherein at least one of the plurality of processing elements is configured to combine signals from multiple antennas of the plurality of antennas to generate a combined signal for processing; and
wherein at least one of the plurality of processing elements is configured to split signals from the combined signal into portions for processing.
5. The base station of claim 1 , wherein, for the at least a subset of the plurality of processing elements, each processing element is configured to operate on the different portions of the combined signal by detecting one or more uplink pilot symbols and generating channel information based on the one or more uplink pilot symbols.
6. The base station of claim 5 , wherein the base station is configured to configure transmit signals via multiple antennas of the plurality of antennas based on the channel information.
7. The base station of claim 6 , wherein the base station is configured to precode different portions of the signals to be transmitted using at least a subset of the plurality of processing elements and wherein the base station is configured to combine the different portions and then split the combined portions for transmission via multiple antennas of the plurality of antennas.
8. A method, comprising:
receiving wireless signals via a plurality of antennas;
combining the received signals;
providing different portions of the combined signals to multiple different processing elements for processing in parallel;
transmitting, via the plurality of antennas, signals that are generated based on processing of the portions of the combined signals by the multiple different processing elements; and
dynamically adjusting, during operation and based on current operating conditions, the number of the multiple different processing elements processing the different portions of the combined signals in parallel and a size of the different portions of the combined signals provided to each of the multiple different processing elements.
9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the portions of the combined signals correspond to different frequency bands.
10. The method of claim 8 , wherein the portions of the combined signals correspond to different time slots.
11. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
precoding, using multiple different processing elements, based on the processing of the portions of the combined signals, the signals for transmission via multiple antennas of the plurality of antennas, wherein each of the multiple different processing elements precodes a different portion of the signals.
12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
combining results of the precoding from the multiple different processing elements; and
splitting the combined results for transmission via different ones of the multiple antennas.
13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the precoding is performed based on channel estimates for uplink pilot symbols in the received wireless signals.
14. The method of claim 8 , wherein the plurality of antennas include more than eight antennas.
15. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that are capable of causing or configuring a computing system to perform operations comprising:
receiving wireless signals via a plurality of antennas;
combining the received signals;
providing different portions of the combined signals to multiple different processing elements of a plurality of processing elements for separate processing in parallel; and
transmitting, via the plurality of antennas, signals that are generated based on processing of the portions of the combined signals by the plurality of processing elements; and
dynamically adjusting, during operation and based on current operating conditions, the number of the multiple different processing elements processing the different portions of the combined signals in parallel and a size of the different portions of the combined signals provided to each of the multiple different processing elements.
16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15 , wherein the portions of the combined signals correspond to different frequency portions.
17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15 , wherein the operations further comprise:
precoding, using multiple different processing elements of the plurality of processing elements, based on the processing of the portions of the combined signals, the signals for transmission via multiple antennas of the plurality of antennas, wherein each of the multiple different processing elements precodes a different portion of the signals;
combining results of the precoding from the multiple different processing elements; and
splitting the combined results for transmission via different ones of the multiple antennas.
18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17 , wherein the precoding is performed based on channel estimates for uplink pilot symbols in the received wireless signals.
19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15 , wherein the plurality of antennas include more than eight antennas.