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

Millimeter Wave MIMO Channel Estimation Based on Adaptive Compressed Sensing

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems are well suited for millimeter-wave (mmWave) wireless communications where large antenna arrays can be integrated in small form factors due to tiny wavelengths, thereby providing high array gains while supporting spatial multiplexing, beamforming, or antenna diversity. It has been shown that mmWave channels exhibit sparsity due to the limited number of dominant propagation paths, thus compressed sensing techniques can be leveraged to conduct channel estimation at mmWave frequencies. This paper presents a novel approach of constructing beamforming dictionary matrices for sparse channel estimation using the continuous basis pursuit (CBP) concept, and proposes two novel low-complexity algorithms to exploit channel sparsity for adaptively estimating multipath channel parameters in mmWave channels. We verify the performance of the proposed CBP-based beamforming dictionary and the two algorithms using a simulator built upon a three-dimensional mmWave statistical spatial channel model, NYUSIM, that is based on real-world propagation measurements. Simulation results show that the CBP-based dictionary offers substantially higher estimation accuracy and greater spectral efficiency than the grid-based counterpart introduced by previous researchers, and the algorithms proposed here render better performance but require less computational effort compared with existing algorithms.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, in 2017 IEEE International Conference on Communications Workshop (ICCW), Paris, May 201

5G Uniform linear arrays with beamforming and spatial multiplexing at 28 GHz, 37 GHz, 64 GHz and 71 GHz for outdoor urban communication: A two-level approach

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) spatial multiplexing and beamforming are regarded as key technology enablers for the fifth-generation (5G) millimeter wave (mmWave) mobile radio services. Spatial multiplexing requires sufficiently separated and incoherent antenna array elements, while in the case of beamforming, the antenna array elements need to be coherent and closely spaced. Extensive 28-, 60-, and 73-GHz ultra-wideband propagation measurements in cities of New York City and Austin have indicated formation of two or more spatial lobes for the angles-of-departure and angles-of-arrival even for line-of-sight (LOS) transmission, which is an advantageous feature of mmWave channels, indicating that the transmitting and receiving array antenna elements can be co-located, thus enabling a single architecture for both spatial multiplexing and beamforming. In this paper, a two-level beamforming architecture for uniform linear arrays is proposed that leverages the formation of these spatial lobes. The antenna array is composed of sub-arrays, and the impact of sub-array spacing on the spectral efficiency is investigated through simulations using a channel simulator named NYUSIM developed based on extensive measured data at mmWave frequencies. Simulation results indicate spectral efficiencies of 18.5–28.1 bits/s/Hz with a sub-array spacing of 16 wavelengths for an outdoor mmWave urban LOS channel. The spectral efficiencies obtained are for single-user (SU) MIMO transmission at the recently allocated 5G carrier frequencies in July 2016. The method and results in this paper are useful for designing antenna array architectures for 5G wireless systems

Massive MIMO transmission techniques

Next generation of mobile communication systems must support astounding data traffic increases, higher data rates and lower latency, among other requirements. These requirements should be met while assuring energy efficiency for mobile devices and base stations. Several technologies are being proposed for 5G, but a consensus begins to emerge. Most likely, the future core 5G technologies will include massive MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) and beamforming schemes operating in the millimeter wave spectrum. As soon as the millimeter wave propagation difficulties are overcome, the full potential of massive MIMO structures can be tapped. The present work proposes a new transmission system with bi-dimensional antenna arrays working at millimeter wave frequencies, where the multiple antenna configurations can be used to obtain very high gain and directive transmission in point to point communications. A combination of beamforming with a constellation shaping scheme is proposed, that enables good user isolation and protection against eavesdropping, while simultaneously assuring power efficient amplification of multi-level constellations