On Detection Issues in the SC-based Uplink of a MU-MIMO System with a Large Number of BS Antennas

This paper deals with SC/FDE within a MU-MIMO system where a large number of BS antennas is adopted. In this context, either linear or reduced-complexity iterative DF detection techniques are considered. Regarding performance evaluation by simulation, appropriate semi-analytical methods are proposed. This paper includes a detailed evaluation of BER performances for uncoded 4-Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (4-QAM) schemes and a MU-MIMO channel with uncorrelated Rayleigh fading. The accuracy of performance results obtained through the semi-analytical simulation methods is assessed by means of parallel conventional Monte Carlo simulations, under the assumptions of perfect power control and perfect channel estimation. The performance results are discussed in detail, with the help of selected performance bounds. We emphasize that a moderately large number of BS antennas is enough to closely approximate the SIMO MFB performance, especially when using the suggested low-complexity iterative DF technique, which does not require matrix inversion operations. We also emphasize the achievable "massive MIMO" effects, even for strongly reduced-complexity linear detection techniques, provided that the number of BS antennas is much higher than the number of antennas which are jointly employed in the terminals of the multiple autonomous users.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

On Low-Resolution ADCs in Practical 5G Millimeter-Wave Massive MIMO Systems

Nowadays, millimeter-wave (mmWave) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems is a favorable candidate for the fifth generation (5G) cellular systems. However, a key challenge is the high power consumption imposed by its numerous radio frequency (RF) chains, which may be mitigated by opting for low-resolution analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), whilst tolerating a moderate performance loss. In this article, we discuss several important issues based on the most recent research on mmWave massive MIMO systems relying on low-resolution ADCs. We discuss the key transceiver design challenges including channel estimation, signal detector, channel information feedback and transmit precoding. Furthermore, we introduce a mixed-ADC architecture as an alternative technique of improving the overall system performance. Finally, the associated challenges and potential implementations of the practical 5G mmWave massive MIMO system {with ADC quantizers} are discussed.Comment: to appear in IEEE Communications Magazin

Large-Scale MIMO Detection for 3GPP LTE: Algorithms and FPGA Implementations

Large-scale (or massive) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is expected to be one of the key technologies in next-generation multi-user cellular systems, based on the upcoming 3GPP LTE Release 12 standard, for example. In this work, we propose - to the best of our knowledge - the first VLSI design enabling high-throughput data detection in single-carrier frequency-division multiple access (SC-FDMA)-based large-scale MIMO systems. We propose a new approximate matrix inversion algorithm relying on a Neumann series expansion, which substantially reduces the complexity of linear data detection. We analyze the associated error, and we compare its performance and complexity to those of an exact linear detector. We present corresponding VLSI architectures, which perform exact and approximate soft-output detection for large-scale MIMO systems with various antenna/user configurations. Reference implementation results for a Xilinx Virtex-7 XC7VX980T FPGA show that our designs are able to achieve more than 600 Mb/s for a 128 antenna, 8 user 3GPP LTE-based large-scale MIMO system. We finally provide a performance/complexity trade-off comparison using the presented FPGA designs, which reveals that the detector circuit of choice is determined by the ratio between BS antennas and users, as well as the desired error-rate performance.Comment: To appear in the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processin