Performance gains from directional antennas in full-duplex systems

Full-duplex (FD) radio can potentially provide a higher spectral efficiency provided the self-interference (SI) at a terminal can be substantially mitigated and the multiuser interference, in the case of a large-scale scenario, is restricted. In this paper, we investigate the positive impact directional antennas can have on the reduction of these two types of interference. We study a two-dimensional geometric channel model in order to understand and acquire insight regarding the multipath effects on the SI caused by scatterers. Moreover, we provide a performance analysis for the uplink in large-scale FD cellular networks and model the impact of passive suppression on the network´s performance. The derived results show the significant performance gains that can be achieved by the employment of directional antennas.