Hybrid precoding design using MMSE baseband precoder for mm-wave multi-user MIMO systems

For future 5G wireless communication networks, millimeter-wave (mmWave) cellular systems is considered to be the key enabling technology because of its high data rates, low latency, high system capacity, and huge available bandwidths. However, multiuser networks in mmWave frequency bands encounter high path loss and interference, thus degrading the performance. Applying large antenna arrays at the base stations (BS) in order to achieve high beamforming gains with the help of precoding techniques is an efficient way of improving the performance of the system. Although multi-user beamforming can improve spectral efficiencies, full digital beamforming strategies used in the conventional microwave systems increase the hardware cost and consumes high power for large number of antennas in mmW systems. In this paper, a low-complexity multi-user hybrid precoding structure is proposed for mmWave multiple input multiple output (MIMO) channels utilizing Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) precoders at the BS with perfect channel knowledge. Simulations show that the achievable rate obtained by the proposed hybrid precoding scheme is very close to the single-user rate and also performs better compared to other hybrid precoding approaches

Multiuser Precoding and Channel Estimation for Hybrid Millimeter Wave MIMO Systems

In this paper, we develop a low-complexity channel estimation for hybrid millimeter wave (mmWave) systems, where the number of radio frequency (RF) chains is much less than the number of antennas equipped at each transceiver. The proposed channel estimation algorithm aims to estimate the strongest angle-of-arrivals (AoAs) at both the base station (BS) and the users. Then all the users transmit orthogonal pilot symbols to the BS via these estimated strongest AoAs to facilitate the channel estimation. The algorithm does not require any explicit channel state information (CSI) feedback from the users and the associated signalling overhead of the algorithm is only proportional to the number of users, which is significantly less compared to various existing schemes. Besides, the proposed algorithm is applicable to both non-sparse and sparse mmWave channel environments. Based on the estimated CSI, zero-forcing (ZF) precoding is adopted for multiuser downlink transmission. In addition, we derive a tight achievable rate upper bound of the system. Our analytical and simulation results show that the proposed scheme offer a considerable achievable rate gain compared to fully digital systems, where the number of RF chains equipped at each transceiver is equal to the number of antennas. Furthermore, the achievable rate performance gap between the considered hybrid mmWave systems and the fully digital system is characterized, which provides useful system design insights.Comment: 6 pages, accepted for presentation, ICC 201