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Title: Using a Drone Sounder to Measure Channels for Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems
Measurements of the propagation channels in realworld environments form the basis of all realistic system performance evaluations, as foundation of statistical channel models or to verify ray tracing. This is also true for the analysis of cell-free massive multi-input multi-output (CF-mMIMO) systems. However, such experimental data are difficult to obtain, due to the complexity and expense of deploying tens or hundreds of channel sounder nodes across the wide area a CF-mMIMO system is expected to cover, especially when different configurations and number of antennas are to be explored. In this paper, we provide a novel method to obtain channel data for CF-mMIMO systems using a channel sounder based on a drone, also known as a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Such a method is efficient, flexible, simple, and low-cost, capturing channel data from thousands of different access point (AP) locations within minutes. In addition, we provide sample 3.5 GHz measurement results analyzing deployment strategies for APs and make the data open source, so they may be used for various other studies. To our knowledge, our data are the first large-scale, real-world CF-mMIMO channel data.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1923601 1731694
PAR ID:
10342472
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
IEEE WCNC
Page Range / eLocation ID:
2506 to 2511
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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