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MU-MIMO & Beamforming

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Multiple antennas: from diversity to data

Early 802.11 used a single antenna (SISO). Multiple antennas were first used for receive diversity — pick the antenna with the stronger signal. MIMO took this further: send independent data on each spatial stream.

The key insight: two antennas at different positions receive slightly different reflections of the same signal. With the right signal processing, these reflections can carry different data.

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