Beam Selection Gain Versus Antenna Selection Gain

Abstract: 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 provide the proofs of the key properties of the noncentral chi-square distribution and the following 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 $\mathnormal{\Theta}(\log(M))$ regardless of user location in contrast to $\mathnormal{\Theta}(\log(\log(M)))$ for antenna selection.