Fundamental Asymptotic Behavior of (Two-User) Distributed Massive MIMO

This paper considers the uplink of a distributed Massive MIMO network where $N$ base stations (BSs), each equipped with $M$ antennas, receive data from $K=2$ users. We study the asymptotic spectral efficiency (as $M\to \infty$) with spatial correlated channels, pilot contamination, and different degrees of channel state information (CSI) and statistical knowledge at the BSs. By considering a two-user setup, we can simply derive fundamental asymptotic behaviors and provide novel insights into the structure of the optimal combining schemes. In line with [1], when global CSI is available at all BSs, the optimal minimum-mean squared error combining has an unbounded capacity as $M\to \infty$, if the global channel covariance matrices of the users are asymptotically linearly independent. This result is instrumental to derive a suboptimal combining scheme that provides unbounded capacity as $M\to \infty$ using only local CSI and global channel statistics. The latter scheme is shown to outperform a generalized matched filter scheme, which also achieves asymptotic unbounded capacity by using only local CSI and global channel statistics, but is derived following [2] on the basis of a more conservative capacity bound.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, to be presented at GLOBECOM 2018, Abu Dhab

Joint Activity Detection, Channel Estimation, and Data Decoding for Grant-free Massive Random Access

In the massive machine-type communication (mMTC) scenario, a large number of devices with sporadic traffic need to access the network on limited radio resources. While grant-free random access has emerged as a promising mechanism for massive access, its potential has not been fully unleashed. In particular, the common sparsity pattern in the received pilot and data signal has been ignored in most existing studies, and auxiliary information of channel decoding has not been utilized for user activity detection. This paper endeavors to develop advanced receivers in a holistic manner for joint activity detection, channel estimation, and data decoding. In particular, a turbo receiver based on the bilinear generalized approximate message passing (BiG-AMP) algorithm is developed. In this receiver, all the received symbols will be utilized to jointly estimate the channel state, user activity, and soft data symbols, which effectively exploits the common sparsity pattern. Meanwhile, the extrinsic information from the channel decoder will assist the joint channel estimation and data detection. To reduce the complexity, a low-cost side information-aided receiver is also proposed, where the channel decoder provides side information to update the estimates on whether a user is active or not. Simulation results show that the turbo receiver is able to reduce the activity detection, channel estimation, and data decoding errors effectively, while the side information-aided receiver notably outperforms the conventional method with a relatively low complexity

Massive MIMO is a Reality -- What is Next? Five Promising Research Directions for Antenna Arrays

Massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) is no longer a "wild" or "promising" concept for future cellular networks - in 2018 it became a reality. Base stations (BSs) with 64 fully digital transceiver chains were commercially deployed in several countries, the key ingredients of Massive MIMO have made it into the 5G standard, the signal processing methods required to achieve unprecedented spectral efficiency have been developed, and the limitation due to pilot contamination has been resolved. Even the development of fully digital Massive MIMO arrays for mmWave frequencies - once viewed prohibitively complicated and costly - is well underway. In a few years, Massive MIMO with fully digital transceivers will be a mainstream feature at both sub-6 GHz and mmWave frequencies. In this paper, we explain how the first chapter of the Massive MIMO research saga has come to an end, while the story has just begun. The coming wide-scale deployment of BSs with massive antenna arrays opens the door to a brand new world where spatial processing capabilities are omnipresent. In addition to mobile broadband services, the antennas can be used for other communication applications, such as low-power machine-type or ultra-reliable communications, as well as non-communication applications such as radar, sensing and positioning. We outline five new Massive MIMO related research directions: Extremely large aperture arrays, Holographic Massive MIMO, Six-dimensional positioning, Large-scale MIMO radar, and Intelligent Massive MIMO.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Digital Signal Processin