Beam Selection Gain Versus Antenna Selection Gain
We consider beam selection using a fixed beamforming network (FBN) at a base station with M array antennas. In our setting, a Butler matrix is deployed at the RF stage to form M beams, and then the best beam is selected for transmission. We introduce some properties of the noncentral chi-square distribution and prove the resulting properties of the beam selection gain verifying that beam selection is superior to antenna selection in Rician channels with any K-factors. Furthermore, we find asymptotically tight stochastic bounds of the beam selection gain, which yield approximate closed form expressions of the expected selection gain and the ergodic capacity. Beam selection has the order of growth of the ergodic capacity Theta(log M) regardless of user location in contrast to Theta(log(log M)) for antenna selection.
beam selection beamforming array antennas butler matrix rician fading