Towards a Realistic Assessment of Multiple Antenna HCNs: Residual Additive Transceiver Hardware Impairments and Channel Aging

Given the critical dependence of broadcast channels by the accuracy of channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT), we develop a general downlink model with zero-forcing (ZF) precoding, applied in realistic heterogeneous cellular systems with multiple antenna base stations (BSs). Specifically, we take into consideration imperfect CSIT due to pilot contamination, channel aging due to users relative movement, and unavoidable residual additive transceiver hardware impairments (RATHIs). Assuming that the BSs are Poisson distributed, the main contributions focus on the derivations of the upper bound of the coverage probability and the achievable user rate for this general model. We show that both the coverage probability and the user rate are dependent on the imperfect CSIT and RATHIs. More concretely, we quantify the resultant performance loss of the network due to these effects. We depict that the uplink RATHIs have equal impact, but the downlink transmit BS distortion has a greater impact than the receive hardware impairment of the user. Thus, the transmit BS hardware should be of better quality than user's receive hardware. Furthermore, we characterise both the coverage probability and user rate in terms of the time variation of the channel. It is shown that both of them decrease with increasing user mobility, but after a specific value of the normalised Doppler shift, they increase again. Actually, the time variation, following the Jakes autocorrelation function, mirrors this effect on coverage probability and user rate. Finally, we consider space division multiple access (SDMA), single user beamforming (SU-BF), and baseline single-input single-output (SISO) transmission. A comparison among these schemes reveals that the coverage by means of SU-BF outperforms SDMA in terms of coverage.Comment: accepted in IEEE TV

Toward a Realistic Assessment of Multiple Antenna HCNs: Residual Additive Transceiver Hardware Impairments and Channel Aging

© 2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Given the critical dependence of broadcast channels by the accuracy of channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT), we develop a general downlink model with zero-forcing precoding, applied in realistic heterogeneous cellular systems with multiple-Antenna base stations (BSS). Specifically, we take into consideration imperfect CSIT due to pilot contamination, channel aging due to users relative movement, and unavoidable residual additive transceiver hardware impairments (RATHIs). Assuming that the BSS are Poisson distributed, the main contributions focus on the derivations of the upper bound of the coverage probability and the achievable user rate for this general model. We show that both the coverage probability and the user rate are dependent on the imperfect CSIT and RATHIs. More concretely, we quantify the resultant performance loss of the network due to these effects. We depict that the uplink RATHIs have equal impact, but the downlink transmit BS distortion has a greater impact than the receive hardware impairment of the user. Thus, the transmit BS hardware should be of better quality than user's receive hardware. Furthermore, we characterise both the coverage probability and user rate in terms of the time variation of the channel. It is shown that both of them decrease with increasing user mobility, but after a specific value of the normalized Doppler shift, they increase again. Actually, the time variation, following the Jakes autocorrelation function, mirrors this effect on coverage probability and user rate. Finally, we consider space-division multiple access (SDMA), single-user beamforming (SU-BF), and baseline single-input single-output transmission. A comparison among these schemes reveals that the coverage by means of SU-BF outperforms SDMA in terms of coverage.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Novel transmission and beamforming strategies for multiuser MIMO with various CSIT types

In multiuser multi-antenna wireless systems, the transmission and beamforming strategies that achieve the sum rate capacity depend critically on the acquisition of perfect Channel State Information at the Transmitter (CSIT). Accordingly, a high-rate low-latency feedback link between the receiver and the transmitter is required to keep the latter accurately and instantaneously informed about the CSI. In realistic wireless systems, however, only imperfect CSIT is achievable due to pilot contamination, estimation error, limited feedback and delay, etc. As an intermediate solution, this thesis investigates novel transmission strategies suitable for various imperfect CSIT scenarios and the associated beamforming techniques to optimise the rate performance. First, we consider a two-user Multiple-Input-Single-Output (MISO) Broadcast Channel (BC) under statistical and delayed CSIT. We mainly focus on linear beamforming and power allocation designs for ergodic sum rate maximisation. The proposed designs enable higher sum rate than the conventional designs. Interestingly, we propose a novel transmission framework which makes better use of statistical and delayed CSIT and smoothly bridges between statistical CSIT-based strategies and delayed CSIT-based strategies. Second, we consider a multiuser massive MIMO system under partial and statistical CSIT. In order to tackle multiuser interference incurred by partial CSIT, a Rate-Splitting (RS) transmission strategy has been proposed recently. We generalise the idea of RS into the large-scale array. By further exploiting statistical CSIT, we propose a novel framework Hierarchical-Rate-Splitting that is particularly suited to massive MIMO systems. Third, we consider a multiuser Millimetre Wave (mmWave) system with hybrid analog/digital precoding under statistical and quantised CSIT. We leverage statistical CSIT to design digital precoder for interference mitigation while all feedback overhead is reserved for precise analog beamforming. For very limited feedback and/or very sparse channels, the proposed precoding scheme yields higher sum rate than the conventional precoding schemes under a fixed total feedback constraint. Moreover, a RS transmission strategy is introduced to further tackle the multiuser interference, enabling remarkable saving in feedback overhead compared with conventional transmission strategies. Finally, we investigate the downlink hybrid precoding for physical layer multicasting with a limited number of RF chains. We propose a low complexity algorithm to compute the analog precoder that achieves near-optimal max-min performance. Moreover, we derive a simple condition under which the hybrid precoding driven by a limited number of RF chains incurs no loss of optimality with respect to the fully digital precoding case.Open Acces

Deep Reinforcement Learning for Multi-user Massive MIMO with Channel Aging

The design of beamforming for downlink multi-user massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) relies on accurate downlink channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter (CSIT). In fact, it is difficult for the base station (BS) to obtain perfect CSIT due to user mobility, latency/feedback delay (between downlink data transmission and CSI acquisition). Hence, robust beamforming under imperfect CSIT is needed. In this paper, considering multiple antennas at all nodes (base station and user terminals), we develop a multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework for massive MIMO under imperfect CSIT, where the transmit and receive beamforming are jointly designed to maximize the average information rate of all users. Leveraging this DRL-based framework, interference management is explored and three DRL-based schemes, namely the distributed-learning-distributed-processing scheme, partial-distributed-learning-distributed-processing, and central-learning-distributed-processing scheme, are proposed and analyzed. This paper \textrm{1)} highlights the fact that the DRL-based strategies outperform the random action-chosen strategy and the delay-sensitive strategy named as sample-and-hold (SAH) approach, and achieved over 90$\%$ of the information rate of two selected benchmarks with lower complexity: the zero-forcing channel-inversion (ZF-CI) with perfect CSIT and the Greedy Beam Selection strategy, \textrm{2)} demonstrates the inherent robustness of the proposed designs in the presence of user mobility.Comment: submitted for publicatio

D3.2 First performance results for multi -node/multi -antenna transmission technologies

This deliverable describes the current results of the multi-node/multi-antenna technologies investigated within METIS and analyses the interactions within and outside Work Package 3. Furthermore, it identifies the most promising technologies based on the current state of obtained results. This document provides a brief overview of the results in its first part. The second part, namely the Appendix, further details the results, describes the simulation alignment efforts conducted in the Work Package and the interaction of the Test Cases. The results described here show that the investigations conducted in Work Package 3 are maturing resulting in valuable innovative solutions for future 5G systems.Fantini. R.; Santos, A.; De Carvalho, E.; Rajatheva, N.; Popovski, P.; Baracca, P.; Aziz, D.... (2014). D3.2 First performance results for multi -node/multi -antenna transmission technologies. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/7675

Quelques Aspects des Réseaux Multi-Cellules Multi-Utilisateurs MIMO : Délai, Conception d'Emetteur-Récepteur, Sélection d'Utilisateurs et Topologie

In order to meet ever-growing needs for capacity in wireless networks, transmission techniques and the system models used to study their performances have rapidly evolved. From single-user single-antenna point-to-point communications to modern multi-cell multi-antenna cellular networks there have been large advances in technology. Along the way, several assumptions are made in order to have either more realistic models, but also to allow simpler analysis. We analyze three aspects of actual networks and try to benefit from them when possible or conversely, to mitigate their negative impact. This sometimes corrects overly optimistic results, for instance when delay in the channel state information (CSI) acquisition is no longer neglected. However, this sometimes also corrects overly pessimistic results, for instance when in a broadcast channel (BC) the number of users is no longer limited to be equal to the number of transmit antennas or when partial connectivity is taken into account in cellular networks.We first focus on the delay in the CSI acquisition because it greatly impairs the channel multiplexing gain if nothing is done to use the dead time during which the transmitters are not transmitting and do not yet have the CSI. We review and propose different schemes to use this dead time to improve the multiplexing gain in both the BC and the interference channel (IC). We evaluate the more relevant net multiplexing gain, taking into account the training and feedback overheads. Results are surprising because potential schemes to fight delay reveal to be burdened by impractical overheads in the BC. In the IC, an optimal scheme is proposed. It allows avoiding any loss of multiplexing gain even for significant feedback delay. Concerning the number of users, we propose a new criterion for the greedy user selection in a BC to benefit of the multi-user diversity, and two interference alignment schemes for the IC to benefit of having multiple users in each cell. Finally, partially connected cellular networks are considered and schemes to benefit from said partial connectivity to increase the multiplexing gain are proposed.Afin de répondre au besoin sans cesse croissant de capacité dans les réseaux sans fil, les techniques de transmission, et les modèles utilisés pour les étudier, ont évolués rapidement. De simples communications point à point avec une seuleantenne nous sommes passé aux réseaux cellulaires de nos jours: de multiples cellules et de multiples antennes à l’émission et à la réception. Progressivement, plusieurs hypothèses ont été faites, soit afin d’avoir des modèles réalistes, mais aussi parfois pour permettre une analyse plus simple. Nous examinons et analysons l’impact de trois aspects des réseaux réels. Cela revient parfois à corriger des résultats trop optimistes, par exemple lorsque le délai dans l’acquisition des coefficients des canaux n’est plus négligé. Cela revient parfois à corriger des résultats trop pessimistes, par exemple, lorsque dans un canal de diffusion (BC) le nombre d’utilisateurs n’est plus limité au nombre d’antennes d’émission ou lorsque la connectivité partielle est prise en compte dans les réseaux cellulaires. Plus précisément, dans cette thèse, nous nous concentrons sur le délai dans l’acquisition des coefficients des canaux par l’émetteur puisque sa prise en comptedétériore grandement le gain de multiplexage du canal si rien n’est fait pour utiliser efficacement le temps mort au cours duquel les émetteurs ne transmettent pas et n’ont pas encore la connaissance du canal. Nous examinons et proposons des schémas de transmission pour utiliser efficacement ce temps mort afin d’améliorer le gain de multiplexage. Nous évaluons le gain de multiplexage net, plus pertinent, en tenant compte le temps passé à envoyer symboles d’apprentissage et à les renvoyer aux transmetteurs. Les résultats sont surprenant puisque les schémas contre le retard de connaissance de canal se révèle être impraticables à cause du cout du partage de la connaissance des canaux. Dans les réseaux multi-cellulaires, un schéma de transmission optimal est proposé et permet de n’avoir aucune perte de gain de multiplexage même en cas de retard important dans la connaissance de canal. En ce qui concerne le nombre d’utilisateurs, nous proposons un nouveau critère pour la sélection des utilisateurs de les configurations à une seule cellule afin de bénéficier de la diversité multi-utilisateurs, et nous proposons deux schémas d’alignement d’interférence pour systèmes multi-cellulaires afin de bénéficier du fait qu’il y a généralement plusieurs utilisateurs dans chaque cellule. Enfin, les réseaux cellulaires partiellement connectés sont étudiés et des schémas bénéficiant de la connectivité partielle pour augmenter le gain de multiplexage sont proposés