On the System-Level Performance of Coordinated Multi-Point Transmission Schemes in 5G NR Deployment Scenarios

This paper investigates the system-level performance of dynamic point selection (DPS) and non-coherent joint transmission (NC-JT) coordinated multi-point transmission (CoMP) schemes under different 5G NR deployment scenarios using state-of-the-art system-level simulations. It is observed that at a mid-band carrier frequency, NC-JT does not provide performance gains over DPS or single transmission/reception point (TRP) transmission unless the channel from a TRP is rank deficient. Therefore, benefits with NC-JT are more likely to be found in indoor deployment scenarios where the TRPs are typically equipped with only 2 transmit antenna ports, whereas benefits are less likely to be observed in macro-cell deployments where TRPs typically have a larger number of antennas ports. It is further observed that NC-JT gains tend to diminish with increasing system load, partly due to increased interference, which typically lowers the transmission rank.