1,480 research outputs found
Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces for Wireless Communications: Principles, Challenges, and Opportunities
Recently there has been a flurry of research on the use of reconfigurable
intelligent surfaces (RIS) in wireless networks to create smart radio
environments. In a smart radio environment, surfaces are capable of
manipulating the propagation of incident electromagnetic waves in a
programmable manner to actively alter the channel realization, which turns the
wireless channel into a controllable system block that can be optimized to
improve overall system performance. In this article, we provide a tutorial
overview of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) for wireless
communications. We describe the working principles of reconfigurable
intelligent surfaces (RIS) and elaborate on different candidate implementations
using metasurfaces and reflectarrays. We discuss the channel models suitable
for both implementations and examine the feasibility of obtaining accurate
channel estimates. Furthermore, we discuss the aspects that differentiate RIS
optimization from precoding for traditional MIMO arrays highlighting both the
arising challenges and the potential opportunities associated with this
emerging technology. Finally, we present numerical results to illustrate the
power of an RIS in shaping the key properties of a MIMO channel.Comment: to appear in the IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and
Networking (TCCN
Hybrid Beamforming via the Kronecker Decomposition for the Millimeter-Wave Massive MIMO Systems
Despite its promising performance gain, the realization of mmWave massive
MIMO still faces several practical challenges. In particular, implementing
massive MIMO in the digital domain requires hundreds of RF chains matching the
number of antennas. Furthermore, designing these components to operate at the
mmWave frequencies is challenging and costly. These motivated the recent
development of hybrid-beamforming where MIMO processing is divided for separate
implementation in the analog and digital domains, called the analog and digital
beamforming, respectively. Analog beamforming using a phase array introduces
uni-modulus constraints on the beamforming coefficients, rendering the
conventional MIMO techniques unsuitable and call for new designs. In this
paper, we present a systematic design framework for hybrid beamforming for
multi-cell multiuser massive MIMO systems over mmWave channels characterized by
sparse propagation paths. The framework relies on the decomposition of analog
beamforming vectors and path observation vectors into Kronecker products of
factors being uni-modulus vectors. Exploiting properties of Kronecker mixed
products, different factors of the analog beamformer are designed for either
nulling interference paths or coherently combining data paths. Furthermore, a
channel estimation scheme is designed for enabling the proposed hybrid
beamforming. The scheme estimates the AoA of data and interference paths by
analog beam scanning and data-path gains by analog beam steering. The
performance of the channel estimation scheme is analyzed. In particular, the
AoA spectrum resulting from beam scanning, which displays the magnitude
distribution of paths over the AoA range, is derived in closed-form. It is
shown that the inter-cell interference level diminishes inversely with the
array size, the square root of pilot sequence length and the spatial separation
between paths.Comment: Submitted to IEEE JSAC Special Issue on Millimeter Wave
Communications for Future Mobile Networks, minor revisio
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
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