Flow-level modeling of multi-user beamforming in mobile networks

Among the several features that are foreseen for increasing the capacity of cellular systems, Multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) is considered as a key enabling technology. Particularly, MU-beamforming is a powerful means of increasing the system capacity and throughput by creating several spatial signals to different users on the same time/frequency resource. In this paper, we develop an analytical model for MU-beamforming based on queuing theory combined with network simulations. The proposed framework is used for evaluating the potential gains in terms of capacity and throughput in LTE-Advanced system. Several scenarios are studied, with and without beamforming. Results show an important gain of SU-beamforming over the classical system without beamforming and a further gain of MU-beamforming, especially at high loads.