Performance Analysis of Millimeter-Wave Massive MU-MIMO with 128 Base-Station Antennas for Private Underground Mine Communications

This paper examines the performance of a large multiuser multiple-input and multiple-output (MU-MIMO) millimetre wave (mmWave) channel in an underground mine. Based on channel measurements made at 28 GHz with a base station of 128 virtual antenna components supporting several customers, the study was carried out. Large-scale path loss, temporal dispersion, coherence bandwidth, and sum-rate capacity are among the channel parameters that are reported and assessed. According to the findings, the multislope path loss model performs better when it comes to accurately predicting path loss across different propagation segments inside the mining gallery. Ninety percent of the root-mean-square (rms) delay spreads are less than 4 ns, according to the time dispersion analysis, which indicates that the underground mine channel does not significantly increase time dispersion. Furthermore, it was discovered that the propagation distance has no bearing on the rms delay spread. The potential of using massive MIMO technology to increase the channel's spectral efficiency is highlighted by the sum-rate capacity study. According to the investigation, the capacity can reach up to 33.54 bit/s/Hz with eight active users. Rich-scattering and irregular topology are two characteristics of the deep mine environment. The results of this article provide important insights into these propagation aspects.

Keywords: 5G, 28 GHz, Channel Capacity, Channel Measurements, Massive Multiuser Multiple Input and Multiple Output (MU-MIMO), Millimeter-Wave (mmWave), Path Loss, Root-Mean-Square (RMS) Delay Spread, Underground Mine, 128 Base Station Antennas.