Antenna Selection Techniques in MIMO Communication Systems
Summary
Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems exploit arrays of transmit and receive antennas to enhance data rates, reliability and spectral efficiency. Antenna selection techniques address the challenge of reducing hardware cost and signal-processing complexity by activating only a subset of available elements while preserving most of the diversity and multiplexing gains. Broadly speaking, antenna selection algorithms fall into three categories: power-based schemes that choose antennas with the strongest channel gains; interference-driven and greedy approaches that optimise constructive superposition and minimise cross-talk among users; and learning-based methods that leverage machine learning or reinforcement learning to predict optimal subsets under varying channel conditions. Hardware-centric strategies explore reduced-connectivity switching networks and hybrid beamforming structures to balance insertion loss, switching loss and computational overhead. Together, these techniques play a crucial role in energy-efficient 5G/6G systems, Internet of Things deployments and emerging satellite and vehicular networks, where the number of radio-frequency (RF) chains must be kept to a minimum without compromising quality of service. Recent advances have focused on joint design of antenna selection with precoding or user scheduling to approach near-optimal performance in real time, as well as on the integration of data-driven decision modules to accelerate adaptation in dynamic propagation environments.
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Antenna Selection Techniques in MIMO Communication Systems publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in antenna selection techniques in mimo communication systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output): A wireless technology using multiple antennas at both transmitter and receiver to improve link capacity and reliability.
Antenna selection: The process of choosing a subset of available antenna elements for transmission or reception to reduce cost and complexity.
RF chain: The complete signal-processing path (including amplifier, mixer and digital-to-analogue converter) associated with one antenna port.
Precoding: A transmitter-side signal shaping technique that spatially multiplexes data across antennas by using channel knowledge.
Beamforming: A spatial-filtering process that steers the transmitted or received signal in desired directions to enhance signal-to-noise ratio.
Channel state information (CSI): Knowledge of the propagation conditions between each transmit and receive antenna, utilised for selection and precoding.
References
- Interference-Driven Antenna Selection for Massive Multiuser MIMO. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (2015).
- Reduced Switching Connectivity for Large Scale Antenna Selection. IEEE Transactions on Communications (2017).
- Machine Learning-Enabled Joint Antenna Selection and Precoding Design: From Offline Complexity to Online Performance. IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (2021).
- An Adaptive Approach for the Joint Antenna Selection and Beamforming Optimization. IEEE Access (2019).
- Reinforcement Learning for Energy-Efficient 5G Massive MIMO: Intelligent Antenna Switching. IEEE Access (2021).
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