Channel Hardening in Massive MIMO: Model Parameters and Experimental Assessment

Reliability is becoming increasingly important for many applications envisioned for future wireless systems. A technology that could improve reliability in these systems is massive MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output). One reason for this is a phenomenon called channel hardening, which means that as the number of antennas in the system increases, the variations of channel gain decrease in both the time- and frequency domain. Our analysis of channel hardening is based on a joint comparison of theory, measurements and simulations. Data from measurement campaigns including both indoor and outdoor scenarios, as well as cylindrical and planar base station arrays, are analyzed. The simulation analysis includes a comparison with the COST 2100 channel model with its massive MIMO extension. The conclusion is that the COST 2100 model is well suited to represent real scenarios, and provides a reasonable match to actual measurements up to the uncertainty of antenna patterns and user interaction. Also, the channel hardening effect in practical massive MIMO channels is less pronounced than in complex independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) Gaussian channels, which are often considered in theoretical work.