LensFD: Using Lenses for Improved Sub-6 GHz Massive MIMO Full-Duplex

Abstract

Massive MIMO has emerged as a key-enabler to deliver the high data-rates in current and next-generation systems. Many massive MIMO deployments use time-division duplex (TDD), thereby opening the door for the potential use of full-duplex at base-stations. In this paper, we present LensFD, a scalable method to enable cost-effective massive MIMO full-duplex operation in sub-6 GHz frequencies with a focus on the CBRS band of 3.5 GHz. LensFD uses a low-cost lens array combined with transmit precoding to reshape the effective beam pattern of antennas in massive MIMO arrays to reduce self-interference. We tested three lens configurations in LensFD experimentally with a software-defined 40-antenna base-station and demonstrate a significant improvement in self-interference reduction and hence overall increased system capacity to 1.6× over the TDD counterpart. As an important contribution, we will open-source the large measurement dataset from our experiments.