Extreme-MIMO Field Trials in 7 GHz Band: Unlocking the Potential of New Spectrum for 6G
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arXiv
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| Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866908906739990528 |
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| author | Lee, Seunghyun Yoon, Jungmin Jung, Sangwon Nam, Young-Han Xu, Gary Chae, Chan-Byoung Lee, Juho Jianzhong Zhang |
| author_facet | Lee, Seunghyun Yoon, Jungmin Jung, Sangwon Nam, Young-Han Xu, Gary Chae, Chan-Byoung Lee, Juho Jianzhong Zhang |
| contents | The frequency range around 7 GHz has emerged as a promising upper mid-band spectrum for 6th generation (6G), offering a practical balance between coverage and capacity. To fully exploit this band, however, future systems require substantially stronger beamforming and spatial multiplexing capability than today's 5G 64-port commercial deployments. This article investigates extreme multiple-input multiple-output (X-MIMO) with 256 digital ports as a practical 6G architecture for 7 GHz operation. First, through system-level simulations, we examine the throughput benefits and design trade-offs of increasing the number of base station (BS) and user equipment (UE) digital antenna ports, including comparisons between 128-port and 256-port configurations. We then present a 256-port 7 GHz BS and UE prototype and report field-trial results obtained in urban outdoor environments. The measurements demonstrate the feasibility of 8-layer downlink single-user MIMO over a 100 MHz bandwidth, achieving more than 3 Gbps for a single user under urban outdoor propagation conditions. Channel analysis based on measured data further suggests how the large digital aperture of X-MIMO supports high-order spatial multiplexing even with limited dominant angular clusters. Finally, we identify key challenges and outline research directions toward practical deployment of 7 GHz X-MIMO systems for 6G. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_21632 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Extreme-MIMO Field Trials in 7 GHz Band: Unlocking the Potential of New Spectrum for 6G Lee, Seunghyun Yoon, Jungmin Jung, Sangwon Nam, Young-Han Xu, Gary Chae, Chan-Byoung Lee, Juho Jianzhong Zhang Signal Processing The frequency range around 7 GHz has emerged as a promising upper mid-band spectrum for 6th generation (6G), offering a practical balance between coverage and capacity. To fully exploit this band, however, future systems require substantially stronger beamforming and spatial multiplexing capability than today's 5G 64-port commercial deployments. This article investigates extreme multiple-input multiple-output (X-MIMO) with 256 digital ports as a practical 6G architecture for 7 GHz operation. First, through system-level simulations, we examine the throughput benefits and design trade-offs of increasing the number of base station (BS) and user equipment (UE) digital antenna ports, including comparisons between 128-port and 256-port configurations. We then present a 256-port 7 GHz BS and UE prototype and report field-trial results obtained in urban outdoor environments. The measurements demonstrate the feasibility of 8-layer downlink single-user MIMO over a 100 MHz bandwidth, achieving more than 3 Gbps for a single user under urban outdoor propagation conditions. Channel analysis based on measured data further suggests how the large digital aperture of X-MIMO supports high-order spatial multiplexing even with limited dominant angular clusters. Finally, we identify key challenges and outline research directions toward practical deployment of 7 GHz X-MIMO systems for 6G. |
| title | Extreme-MIMO Field Trials in 7 GHz Band: Unlocking the Potential of New Spectrum for 6G |
| topic | Signal Processing |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.21632 |