Multicast Beamforming Capabilities of LTE MBSFN for V2X Communications

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate multicast transmit beamforming for vehicle to everything (V2X) communication employing LTE's multimedia broadcast single-frequency network (MBSFN) capabilities. LTE-MBSFN enables to broadcast/ multicast information in 4G networks, which can be utilized for efficient dissemination of road traffic related information to vehicles on highways/motorways. MBSFN is currently restricted to single antenna transmission within the LTE standard; this paper aims to present performance benefits obtained with the introduction of multiple transmit antennas. We propose an efficient multi-cell multicast beamforming technique that leads to significant SINR improvements, which enhances reliability, reduces transmission latency and facilitates achieving 5G requirements for vehicular communications.