Over-the-air Performance Evaluation of Massive MIMO Base Stations in Sectorized Multi-Probe Anechoic Chambers

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is seen as an enabling technology to fulfill dramatic improvements in spectral efficiency for 5G deployment in 2020. For massive MIMO systems, the learning loop from early stage prototype design to final stage performance validation, is expected to be slow and ineffective. There is a strong need to evaluate massive MIMO base station (BS) performance with over-the-air (OTA) methods. Up to now, such OTA solutions have not been discussed for massive MIMO BS systems. The focus of this paper is on how to design practical multi-probe anechoic chamber setups suitable for massive MIMO BSs. Various aspects, e.g. suitable radio channel models, physical dimension of the MPAC setups, probe configurations, and number of required OTA antennas are discussed. In this paper, a sectorized MPAC configuration is proposed for massive MIMO device system evaluation to save system cost.