Massive MIMO technology aroused the interest of 5G researchers at an early stage. However, during the past five to ten years the research community has agreed that there is an upper limit to how much data can be transferred wirelessly per second, given a certain bandwidth and within a certain area. The limiting factor has been a type of disturbance that arises when measuring how the wireless signals travel, known by researchers as “pilot contamination”.
"This conclusion is the result of us using a model that was far too focused on reseach tractability and a method that was too simple," says Emil Björnson.
By deploying more antennas and processing the signals that are transmitted and received from them in the right way, we can create a system in which there is no upper limit for how much data can be transferred. …
Primary Source: Linköping University, Sweden
Scientific Paper: IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications ( Volume: 17, Issue: 1, Jan. 2018 )