Single Anchor Localization and Orientation Performance Limits using Massive Arrays: MIMO vs. Beamforming

Abstract: Next generation cellular networks will experience the combination of femtocells, millimeter-wave (mm-wave) communications and massive antenna arrays. Thanks to the beamforming capability as well as the high angular resolution provided by massive arrays, only one single access point (AP) acting as an anchor node could be used for localization estimation, thus avoiding over-sized infrastructures dedicated to positioning. In this context, our paper aims at investigating the localization and orientation performance limits employing massive arrays both at the AP and mobile side. Thus, we first asymptotically demonstrate the tightness of the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) in massive array regime, and in the presence or not of multipath. Successively, we propose a comparison between MIMO and beamforming in terms of array structure, time synchronization error and multipath components. Among different array configurations, we consider also random weighting as a trade-off between the high diversity gain of MIMO and the high directivity guaranteed by phased arrays. By evaluating the CRB for the different array configurations, results show the interplay between diversity and beamforming gain as well as the benefits achievable by varying the number of array elements in terms of localization accuracy.