Field experiments on 5G radio access using 15-GHz band in outdoor small cell environment

Abstract

This paper presents outdoor field experimental results showing the achievement of 3-Gbps throughput performance based on 400-MHz bandwidth transmission when applying carrier aggregation with 4 component carriers and 4-by-4 single-user multiple-in multiple-out multiplexing in the 15-GHz frequency band in the downlink of 5G cellular radio access. A new radio interface with time division duplexing and radio access based on orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing is implemented in a 5G testbed to support ultra-high speed transmission with low latency. Experimental results in an outdoor open-space parking area show that the peak throughput is 2.8 Gbps in front of a base station (BS) antenna with a high reference signal received power (RSRP) although rank 2 is selected due to the high antenna correlation. The results also show that the average throughput of 2 Gbps is achieved 120 m from the BS antenna. In a courtyard enclosed by building walls, 3.6 Gbps is achieved in an outdoor-to-outdoor environment with a high RSRP and in an outdoor-to-indoor environment where the RSRP is lower due to the penetration loss of glass windows, but a multipath rich environment contributes to actualizing a low antenna correlation.