Dynamic Sounding for Multi-User MIMO in Wireless LANs

Consumer electronic (CE) devices increasingly rely on wireless local area networks (WLANs). Next generation WLANs will continue to exploit multiple antenna systems to satisfy the growing need for WLAN system capacity. Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna systems improve the spectral efficiency and single user throughput. Multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) systems exploit the spatial separation of users for increasing the sum-throughput. In an MU-MIMO system, efficient channel sounding is essential for achieving optimal performance. The system analysis in this paper provides insights into the rate at which to perform channel sounding. This paper shows that optimal sounding intervals exist for single user transmit beamforming (SU-TxBF) and MU-MIMO, and proposes a low-complexity dynamic sounding approach for practical MU-MIMO WLAN deployments. The proposed approach adjusts the sounding interval adaptively based on the real-time learning outcomes in the given radio environment. Using real over-the-air channel measurements, significant throughput improvements (up to 31.8%) are demonstrated by adopting the proposed dynamic sounding approach, which is compliant with IEEE 802.11ac.