Ever since the invention of Bell Laboratories Layer Space-Time (BLAST) in mid 1990s, the focus of MIMO research and development has been largely on pushing the limit of spectral efficiency. While massive MIMO technologies laid the foundation of high throughput in 5G and beyond, energy efficiency of the associated radio system leaves much room for improvement. With the substantial negative implications of climate change looming ever closer, enabling sustainability is of paramount importance for any future technology, and minimizing energy use is a key dimension of achieving sustainability. Thus, every aspect of future extreme MIMO system design, implementation, and operation will be scrutinized to maximize energy efficiency. An analysis of the massive MIMO 5G radio energy consumption at different loads leads to qualitative energy efficiency design goals for emerging extreme MIMO systems. Following this, we focus on novel operational and component technology innovations to minimize energy consumption.

翻译：自20世纪90年代中期贝尔实验室分层空时（BLAST）技术发明以来，多输入多输出（MIMO）研究与开发的重点主要集中在推动频谱效率极限上。虽然大规模MIMO技术为5G及更高代的系统奠定了高吞吐量的基础，但相关无线电系统的能效仍有很大提升空间。随着气候变化带来的显著负面影响日益逼近，实现可持续性对未来任何技术都至关重要，而最小化能源消耗是实现可持续性的关键维度。因此，未来极端MIMO系统设计、实现与运行的每一个环节都将受到严格审视，以最大化能效。通过对不同负载下大规模MIMO 5G无线电能耗的分析，本文为新兴极端MIMO系统提出了定性的能效设计目标。在此基础上，我们聚焦于新型运行与组件技术创新，以最小化能源消耗。