Performance evaluation of multi-antenna receivers for vehicular communications in live LTE networks

Cellular Vehicle to Everything (C-V2X) communications with its safety and infotainment services will require a high performance receivers to cope with challenging throughput, latency and reliability requirements. With increasing levels of interference due to cell densification and introduction of the roadside units, single antenna receivers may not be able to provide the required quality of service. In this work we experimentally study the performance of multi antenna receivers based on more than 150 km of data recorded during experiments using a customized software defined radio testbed. The performance of sixteen antennas Maximum Ratio Combiner (MRC) is compared with the receive beamforming technique for the live cellular signals in the 1.8 GHz band. This study is followed by an analysis of the impact of interference and measurement environment on the receiver's performance. The results show that receive beamforming can outperform MRC in low- interfered scenarios with high Line of Sight (LoS) probability, like highways or rural areas, while ensuring comparable performance even in dense urban scenarios where LoS communication cannot be guaranteed.