The Downlink Performance for Cell-Free Massive MIMO with Instantaneous CSI in Slowly Time-Varying Channels

In centralized massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, the channel hardening phenomenon can occur, in which the channel behaves as almost fully deterministic as the number of antennas increases. Nevertheless, in a cell-free massive MIMO system, the channel is less deterministic. In this paper, we propose using instantaneous channel state information (CSI) instead of statistical CSI to obtain the power control coefficient in cell-free massive MIMO. Access points (APs) and user equipment (UE) have sufficient time to obtain instantaneous CSI in a slowly time-varying channel environment. We derive the achievable downlink rate under instantaneous CSI for frequency division duplex (FDD) cell-free massive MIMO systems and apply the results to the power control coefficients. For FDD systems, quantized channel coefficients are proposed to reduce feedback overhead. The simulation results show that the spectral efficiency performance when using instantaneous CSI is approximately three times higher than that achieved using statistical CSI.     

Rate analysis of ZF receiver for uplink cell-free massive MIMO systems with D2D communications

This paper proposes a transmission structure of zero forcing (ZF) receiver for uplink cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with device-to-device (D2D) communications, followed by a rate analysis. We assumed that D2D users (DUEs) can utilize orthogonal radio resources to improve the efficiency of the scarce utilization or repurpose the time–frequency-spectrum resources currently used by the cell-free users (CFUEs). Assuming that the imperfect channel state information (CSI) is realizable, after that, the use-and-forget bounding technique is then used to respectively obtain the closed-form expressions of the CFUEs and DUEs, which provide the lower bounds on the ergodic approximate realizable rate of both communication links. First, we calculate the minimum-mean-square error (MMSE) estimation for all channels. Then, the derived results of the achievable uplink sum rate provide us with a tool that enables us to explain how some important parameters, such as the number of access points (APs)/CFUEs, each AP/CFUE/antenna, and the density of DUEs, affect system performance, highlighting the significance of cooperation between cell-free massive MIMO and D2D communication.     

Downlink channel estimation in FDD cell-free massive MIMO

In frequency-division duplexing (FDD) cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, an excessive channel estimation overhead is a critical issue that limits the system performance. In this paper, by exploiting the sparse channel characteristics of such a cell-free system, we apply compressive sensing to estimate the channel state information and solve the excessive pilot overhead problem. The proposed algorithm estimates several channel coefficients with significant gains in the power domain and ignores the approximately zero coefficients. Compared to minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimation with orthogonal pilots, the proposed method significantly reduces the pilot overhead in an FDD cell-free massive MIMO system. The access points (APs) that contribute low gains feature reduced energy consumption because the power coefficients corresponding to zero gains in the sparse channel are assigned zeros in the power control process. Therefore, to improve the energy efficiency, the ignored channel coefficients reduce the power overhead.     

Energy-efficient power allocation in cell-free massive MIMO with zero-forcing: First order methods

In this paper, the downlink of cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) with zero-forcing processing is considered. To maximize the system energy efficiency (EE), we design power allocation algorithms taking into account imperfect channel state information, hardware, and backhaul power consumption. The total EE optimization problem is nonconvex, which traditionally is solved by the successive convex approximation framework which involves second order cone programs (SOCPs). As such methods have high complexity, the run time is extremely long, especially in large-scale systems with thousands of access points (APs) and users. To overcome this problem, in this paper, we propose to apply two computationally efficient methods, namely proximal gradient (PG) method and accelerated proximal gradient (APG) method to solve the considered problem. Numerical results show that, compared to the conventional SOCPs approximation methods, our proposed methods achieve the same performance while the run time is much smaller.     

RIS-assisted cell-free massive MIMO systems with reflection area: AP number reduction

Cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) has been regarded as a promising technology due to high spectral efficiency. However, as large number of access points (APs) are deployed with fibers connecting to the central processing unit, the increase of energy consumption and hardware cost raise concerns. The reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) with impressing potential for low energy and cost finds a way to solve this problem. In this paper, we investigate the performance of the cell-free massive MIMO system with a RIS. As RIS can only reflect signals from the front, user equipments (UEs) and APs are divided into two categories according to their relative position with the RIS, i.e., one is on the reflection area of the RIS and the other is not. A closed-form approximation of the UE achievable downlink rate is derived. Based on it, we obtain the optimal RIS position and phase shift that can maximize the UE sum rate, through alternating optimization method. It is found that compared with the cell-free massive MIMO system without RIS, to achieve the same rate performance, the number of required AP in the RIS-assisted system can be significantly reduced. Moreover, as the RIS component increases, the number of required AP can be reduced almost linearly without rate reduction, which means the hardware and energy cost can be greatly cut down. Furthermore, from our simulation results, we can see that when users are densely distributed, the optimal location of the RIS should be closer to users. When users are uniformly distributed, the optimal position of RIS is close to the central position.     

Data detection based on matrix decomposition for massive MIMO systems in realistic channel scenarios

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is a key technology for modern wireless communication systems. In massive MIMO receivers, data detection is a computationally expensive task. In this paper, we explore the performance and the computational complexity of matrix decomposition based detectors in realistic channel scenarios for different massive MIMO configurations. In addition, data detectors based on decomposition algorithms are compared to the approximate-inversion detection (AID) methods. It is shown that the alternating-direction-method-of-multipliers-based-Infinity-Norm (ADMIN) detection is promising in realistic channel environment and the performance is stable even when the ratio of the base-station (BS) antenna elements to the number of users is small. In addition, this paper studies the performance of several detectors in imperfect channel state information (CSI) and correlated channels. Our work provides valuable insights for massive MIMO systems and very large-scale integration (VLSI) designers to select the appropriate massive MIMO detector based on their specifications.     

Secure communication over RIS-aided underlay CR MIMO wiretap channel without Eve’s CSI

This paper investigates a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided underlay cognitive radio (CR) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wiretap channel where the secondary transmitter (ST) communicates with primary user (PU) and secondary user (SU) in the absence of the eavesdropper’s (Eve’s) channel state information (CSI). To enhance the secrecy performance in CR MIMO wiretap channel, the power of useful signal is minimized at ST, and then the residual power is further utilized to design artificial noise (AN) based on statistical CSI at ST. Specifically, we first optimize the transmit covariance matrix at ST and the diagonal phase-shifting matrix at RIS jointly leveraging large-system approximation results. Then the power allocation for SU is optimized to obtain the minimum transmit power of useful information at ST. Besides, we further design AN with the residual power by aligning it into the null space of the SU channel and thus avert the harmful effects of AN to improve the secure communication quality of SU. Finally, through numerical simulations, we illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and validate the existence of a trade-off between the quality-of-service (QoS) at SU and secrecy rate.     

Joint user grouping and power allocation in VLC-NOMA system

With the energy consumption of wireless networks increasing, visible light communication (VLC) has been regarded as a promising technology to realize energy conservation. Due to the massive terminals access and increased traffic demand, the implementation of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technology in VLC networks has become an inevitable trend. In this paper, we aim to maximize the energy efficiency in VLC-NOMA networks. Assuming perfect knowledge of the channel state information of user equipment, the energy efficiency maximization problem is formulated as a mixed integer nonlinear programming problem. To solve this problem, the joint user grouping and power allocation (JUGPA) is proposed including user grouping and power allocation. In user grouping phase, we utilize the average of channel gain among all user equipment and propose a dynamic user grouping algorithm with low complexity. The proposed scheme exploits the channel gain differences among users and divides them into multiple groups. In power allocation phase, we proposed a power allocation algorithm for maximizing the energy efficiency for a given NOMA group. Thanks to the objective function is fraction form and non-convex, we firstly transform it to difference form and convex function. Then, we derive the closed-form optimal power allocation expression that maximizes the energy efficiency by Dinkelbach method and Lagrange dual decomposition method. Simulation results show that the JUGPA can effectively improve energy efficiency of the VLC-NOMA networks.     

Performance enhancement in the cell-free massive MIMO SWIPT system with active eavesdropping

This paper investigates the secure transmission for simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) in the cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system. To develop green communication, legitimate users harvest energy by the hybrid time switching (TS) and power splitting (PS) strategy in the downlink phase, and the harvested energy can provide power to send uplink pilot sequences for the next time slot. By in-built batteries, the active eavesdropper can send the same pilots with the wiretapped user, which results in undesirable correlations between the channel estimates. Under these scenarios, we derive the closed-form expressions of average harvested energy and achievable rates, and propose an iterative power control (PC) scheme based on max–min fairness algorithm with energy and secrecy constraints (MMF-ESC). This scheme can ensure the uniform good services for all users preserving the distributed architecture advantage of cell-free networks, while meeting the requirements of energy harvested by legitimate users and network security against active eavesdroppers. Besides, continuous approximation, bisection and path tracking are jointly applied to cope with the high-complexity and non-convex optimization. Numerical results demonstrate that MMF-ESC PC scheme can effectively increase the achievable rate and the average harvested energy of each user, and decrease the eavesdropping rate below the threshold. Moreover, the results also reveal that PS strategy is superior in harvesting energy in terms of more stringent network requirements for average achievable rates or security.     

An overview of simultaneous wireless information and power transfer in massive MIMO networks: A resource allocation perspective

Providing a stable and perpetual source of energy to charge battery-powered wireless communication devices is viewed as a major challenge in wireless communication systems. This challenge leads to the trending research area where radio frequency signals are being exploited for energy harvesting purposes. The technique for achieving this is known as simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT). In recent studies on SWIPT, the massive Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) aided energy harvesting has attracted considerable attention from the research community. This can be attributed to the high energy delivery rate of massive MIMO antenna systems due to their capacity to focus transmitted signals in the direction of the intended receivers. However, SWIPT in massive MIMO networks requires an optimal design to achieve a proper balance between different conflicting network objectives. In this article, we aim to discuss various contributions to SWIPT in massive MIMO networks in order to address critical design issues. In particular, we focus on the widely adopted approach to resolving SWIPT-related issues in massive MIMO networks, that is, the resource allocation design. We also extend our discussion to studies dedicated to solving critical design challenges. In this regard, we take into consideration the energy efficiency and security aspect of the system design. Finally, we identify potential areas that can be explored for future research work.     

A low complexity burst channel estimation algorithm for FDD massive MIMO systems

To fully attain array gains of massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and its energy and spectral efficiency, deriving channel state information (CSI) at the base station (BS) side is essential. However, CSI estimation of frequency-division duplex (FDD) based massive MIMO is a challenging task owning to the required pilots, which are proportional to the number of antennas at the BS side. Therefore, the pilot overhead should be inevitably mitigated in the process of downlink channel estimation of FDD technique. In this paper, we propose a novel compressed sensing (CS) algorithm which takes advantage of correlation between the received and transmitted signals to estimate the channel with high precision, and moreover, to reduce the computational complexity imposed on the BS side. The main idea behind the proposed algorithm is to sort the specific number of maximum correlations as a common support in each iteration of the algorithm. Simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm is capable of estimating downlink channel better than the counterpart algorithms in terms of mean square error (MSE) and the computational complexity. Meanwhile, the complexity of the proposed method linearly grows up when the number of BS antennas increases.     

Joint beamforming and phase-shifting design for energy efficiency in RIS-assisted MISO communication with statistical CSI

The emergence of more and more computation-intensive applications has imposed higher requirements in spectrum and energy efficiency (EE) for internet of things (IoT) wireless networks. Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is utilized to gain spectral efficiency as an important part of wireless systems. However, the power expansion from hardware lowers the massive MIMO performance remarkably. Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) technology can solve this problem well since it can not only provide higher array gain but also reduce energy depletion and hardware expense. In this article, we study joint optimization about beam-forming, RIS phase shift, and energy harvesting of IoT devices for maximizing EE of the multiple-input single-input downlink system with multiple IoT devices and an energy harvesting device. Different from existing works focusing on ergodic capacity with known statistic channel information of BS-RIS-device, we suppose that statistics information of RIS-device is known. Mathematically, the joint optimization problem is cast into a challenging non-convex one. To this end, based on successive convex approximation, we convert the original problem into two parts and then provide two heuristic schemes to tackle them, respectively. Next, an iterative scheme integrated by two heuristic algorithms is proposed to earn feasible solution in polynomial time. Finally, the proposed scheme is verified to be effective by simulations.     

A contemporary review on user scheduling techniques and feedback reduction strategies towards the development of 5G and beyond communications

User scheduling (US) is the process of dynamic selection of the set of active users out of all available users to serve in each time slot. This is done to optimize the system performance, such as maximizing the sum rate, achieving better fairness, and quality of service or minimizing the interference. The choice of US method depends on the desired system performance and the trade-off between fairness and efficiency. In order to achieve these performance metrics base station (BS) needs channel state information (CSI) of each user for efficient US. Moreover, US and CSI feedback are closely related in the context of conventional multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) to massive MIMO (mMIMO) systems based on full and limited CSI, as feedback information is often used to make informed decisions on US. To address these objectives simultaneously, this survey deals with exploring different algorithms used for efficient US, various criteria for US considering different scenarios, key methods for user grouping, methods for reduced feedback, and different standard codebook based feedback methods. To be more specific and concise, this article provides a comprehensive survey on state of the art methods used for US in single cell single tier, dual stage (double tier), multi cell scenarios and feedback mechanisms used in various contexts, e.g., multiuser (MU)-MIMO, MU-mMIMO, frequency division duplexing (FDD) mMIMO framework. Moreover, a synopsis of the recently proposed advanced codebook and non-codebook based methods for the long term evolution standards, fifth generation, and beyond communications are discussed. Finally the research gaps as the future scopes are discussed in this article.     

Experience-driven learning-based intelligent hybrid beamforming for massive MIMO mmWave communications

We have studied massive MIMO hybrid beamforming (HBF) for millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications, where the transceivers only have a few radio frequency chain (RFC) numbers compared to the number of antenna elements. We propose a hybrid beamforming design to improve the system’s spectral, hardware, and computational efficiencies, where finding the precoding and combining matrices are formulated as optimization problems with practical constraints. The series of analog phase shifters creates a unit modulus constraint, making this problem non-convex and subsequently incurring unaffordable computational complexity. Advanced deep reinforcement learning techniques effectively handle non-convex problems in many domains; therefore, we have transformed this non-convex hybrid beamforming optimization problem using a reinforcement learning framework. These frameworks are solved using advanced deep reinforcement learning techniques implemented with experience replay schemes to maximize the spectral and learning efficiencies in highly uncertain wireless environments. We developed a twin-delayed deep deterministic (TD3) policy gradient-based hybrid beamforming scheme to overcome Q-learning’s substantial overestimation. We assumed a complete channel state information (CSI) to design our beamformers and then challenged this assumption by proposing a deep reinforcement learning-based channel estimation method. We reduced hybrid beamforming complexity using soft target double deep Q-learning to exploit mmWave channel sparsity. This method allowed us to construct the analog precoder by selecting channel dominant paths. We have demonstrated that the proposed approaches improve the system’s spectral and learning efficiencies compared to prior studies. We have also demonstrated that deep reinforcement learning is a versatile technique that can unleash the power of massive MIMO hybrid beamforming in mmWave systems for next-generation wireless communication.     

Resource allocation in relay-assisted MIMO MAC systems with statistical CSI

In this work, the issue of non-cooperative resource allocation in the uplink of a relay-assisted MIMO MAC (multiple input multiple output multiple access channel) system with statistical CSI (channel state information) is considered. The mobile transmitters pursue individual achievable ergodic rate maximization, whereas the relay aims at optimizing the global performance of the system. The problem is formulated as a Stackelberg game with the relay as the leader, and the multiple access users as the followers. Moreover, necessary and sufficient conditions for beamforming optimality at the relay are derived, which simplifies the resource allocation process. Finally, numerical results corroborate the theoretical findings.     

Channel temporal correlation-based optimization method for imperfect underwater acoustic channel state information

The rapid time variations and large channel estimation errors in underwater acoustic (UWA) channels mean that transmitters for adaptive resource allocation quickly become outdated and provide inaccurate channel state information (CSI). This results in poor resource allocation efficiency. To address this issue, this paper proposes an optimization approach for imperfect CSI based on a Gauss–Markov model and the per-subcarrier channel temporal correlation (PSCTC) factor. The proposed scheme is applicable to downlink UWA orthogonal frequency division multiple access systems. The proposed PSCTC factors are measured, and their long-term stability is verified using data recorded in real-world sea tests. Simulation and experimental results show that the optimized CSI effectively mitigates the effects of the temporal variability of UWA channels. It demonstrates that the resource allocation scheme using optimized CSI achieves a higher effective throughput and a lower bit error rate than both imperfect CSI and the CSI predicted by the recursive least-squares (RLS) algorithm.     

Decomposition of uplink multi-user OTFS channel with partial CSI feedback

This work studies system design methods for the uplink multi-user orthogonal time–frequency space (OTFS) channel which forms a virtual multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system. For such system, the received signal contains interferences in the space, frequency, and time domain at the same time. To reduce the computational complexity, this work proposes to decompose the original large MIMO channel into parallel small sub-channels in the following order: first to decompose in the space domain, then to decompose in the time domain, thereby reducing the computational complexity. To help achieve channel decomposition, the proposed method requires the transmitter to perform precoding that needs channel state information (CSI) feedback. However, the proposed method only needs partial CSI feedback including delay and Doppler shift, so the feedback burden is small. Simulation results of the bit error rate (BER) performance verify that the proposed channel decomposition method is effective.     

MIMO-OFDM underwater acoustic communication systems—A review

The ever increasing demand for bandwidth, efficiency, spatial diversity and performance of underwater acoustic (UWA) communication has opened doors for the use of Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO). A combination of MIMO and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) has proved to be a promising solution for many scenarios in UWA communication; on the contrary, it also amplifies the design challenges for implementing such schemes to acquire the required bandwidth efficiency. The goal of this study is to provide a comprehensive survey of the latest researches in the field of UWA MIMO-OFDM communication. The previous works are summarized, reviewed and compared according to their years of publication while problems faced by UWA MIMO-OFDM communication are highlighted. The articles are classified according to the focused techniques like channel estimation, equalization, coding and detection. Furthermore the works are compared based on the complexity and performance of the algorithms while some future research issues are identified.     

Deep learning-based channel estimation using Gaussian mixture distribution and expectation maximum algorithm

In massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), it is much challenging to obtain accurate channel state information (CSI) after radio frequency (RF) chain reduction due to the high dimensions. With the fast development of machine learning(ML), it is widely acknowledged that ML is an effective method to deal with channel models which are typically unknown and hard to approximate. In this paper, we use the low complexity vector approximate messaging passing (VAMP) algorithm for channel estimation, combined with a deep learning framework for soft threshold shrinkage function training. Furthermore, in order to improve the estimation accuracy of the algorithm for massive MIMO channels, an optimized threshold function is proposed. This function is based on Gaussian mixture (GM) distribution modeling, and the expectation maximum Algorithm (EM Algorithm) is used to recover the channel information in beamspace. This contraction function and deep neural network are improved on the vector approximate messaging algorithm to form a high-precision channel estimation algorithm. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed network.     

Performance of multi-user transmitter preprocessing assisted MIMO system over correlated frequency-selective channels

In this contribution we present the performance of a multi-user transmitter preprocessing (MUTP) assisted multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) space division multiple access (SDMA) system, aided by double space time transmit diversity (DSTTD) and space time block code (STBC) processing for downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) transmissions respectively. The MUTP is invoked by singular value decomposition (SVD) which exploits the channel state information (CSI) of all the users at the base station (BS) and only an individual user’s CSI at the mobile station (MS). Specifically, in this contribution, we investigate the performance of multi-user MIMO cellular systems in frequency-selective channels from a transmitter signal processing perspective, where multiple access interference (MAI) is the dominant channel impairment. In particular, the effects of three types of delay spread distributions on MUTP assisted MIMO SDMA systems pertaining to the Long Term Evolution (LTE) channel model are analyzed. The simulation results demonstrate that MUTP can perfectly eliminate MAI in addition to obviating the need for complex multi-user detectors (MUDs) both at the BS and MS. Further, SVD-based MUTP results in better achievable symbol error rate (SER) compared to popularly known precoding schemes such as block diagonalization (BD), dirty paper coding (DPC), Tomlinson–Harashima precoding (THP) and geometric mean decomposition (GMD). Furthermore, when turbo coding is invoked, coded SVD aided MUTP results in better achievable SER than an uncoded system.