Procedures to control beamforming

A base station, comprising:

• a plurality of transmitter chains that can be selectively used to transmit a beam-formed signal;
• and
• processing circuitry operatively associated with the plurality of transmitter chains and configured to:
• determine a targeted receive power for the beam-formed signal, with respect to a target user equipment (UE);
• select a number of the plurality of transmitter chains for forming the beam-formed signal, based on the targeted receive power and based on an estimated power consumption for each of the plurality of transmitter chains, wherein said selecting is performed so as to minimize a total power consumption, given the estimated power consumptions;
• and
• transmit a beam-formed signal, using the selected number of the plurality of transmitter chains.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing a computer program comprising program instructions that, when executed on at least one processing circuit of base station having a plurality of transmitter chains that can be selectively used to transmit a beam-formed signal, configures the base station to:

• determine a targeted receive power for the beam-formed signal, with respect to a target user equipment (UE);
• select a number of the plurality of transmitter chains for forming the beam-formed signal, based on the targeted receive power and based on an estimated power consumption for each of the plurality of transmitter chains, wherein said selecting is performed so as to minimize a total power consumption, given the estimated power consumptions;
• and
• transmit a beam-formed signal, using the selected number of the plurality of transmitter chains.