Multi-user MIMO and Carrier Aggregation in 4G systems: The SAMURAI approach

The market success of broadband multimedia-enabled devices such as smart phones, tablets, and laptops is increasing the demand for wireless data capacity in mobile cellular systems. In order to meet such requirements, the introduction of advanced techniques for increasing the efficiency in spectrum usage was required. Multi User -Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO) and Carrier Aggregation (CA) are two important techniques addressed by 3GPP for LTE and LTE-Advanced. The aim of the EU FP7 project on “Spectrum Aggregation and Multi-user-MIMO: real-World Impact” (SAMURAI) is to investigate innovative techniques in the area of MU-MIMO and CA with particular focus on the practical, real-life, implementation and system deployment aspects. In the present paper, we provided an overview of the up-to-date SAMURAI contributions together with a description of the SAMURAI demonstrators developed as core part of the project.