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

Performance Gains of Optimal Antenna Deployment for Massive MIMO Systems

We consider the uplink of a single-cell multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system with several single antenna transmitters/users and one base station with $N$ antennas in the $N\rightarrow\infty$ regime. The base station antennas are evenly distributed to $n$ admissable locations throughout the cell. First, we show that a reliable (per-user) rate of $O(\log n)$ is achievable through optimal locational optimization of base station antennas. We also prove that an $O(\log n)$ rate is the best possible. Therefore, in contrast to a centralized or circular deployment, where the achievable rate is at most a constant, the rate with a general deployment can grow logarithmically with $n$, resulting in a certain form of "macromultiplexing gain." Second, using tools from high-resolution quantization theory, we derive an accurate formula for the best achievable rate given any $n$ and any user density function. According to our formula, the dependence of the optimal rate on the user density function $f$ is curiously only through the differential entropy of $f$. In fact, the optimal rate decreases linearly with the differential entropy, and the worst-case scenario is a uniform user density. Numerical simulations confirm our analytical findings.Comment: GLOBECOM 201

Energy-Efficient NOMA Enabled Heterogeneous Cloud Radio Access Networks

Heterogeneous cloud radio access networks (H-CRANs) are envisioned to be promising in the fifth generation (5G) wireless networks. H-CRANs enable users to enjoy diverse services with high energy efficiency, high spectral efficiency, and low-cost operation, which are achieved by using cloud computing and virtualization techniques. However, H-CRANs face many technical challenges due to massive user connectivity, increasingly severe spectrum scarcity and energy-constrained devices. These challenges may significantly decrease the quality of service of users if not properly tackled. Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) schemes exploit non-orthogonal resources to provide services for multiple users and are receiving increasing attention for their potential of improving spectral and energy efficiency in 5G networks. In this article a framework for energy-efficient NOMA H-CRANs is presented. The enabling technologies for NOMA H-CRANs are surveyed. Challenges to implement these technologies and open issues are discussed. This article also presents the performance evaluation on energy efficiency of H-CRANs with NOMA.Comment: This work has been accepted by IEEE Network. Pages 18, Figure