Uplink Performance of Time-Reversal MRC in Massive MIMO Systems Subject to Phase Noise

Multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) cellular systems with an excess of base station (BS) antennas (Massive MIMO) offer unprecedented multiplexing gains and radiated energy efficiency. Oscillator phase noise is introduced in the transmitter and receiver radio frequency chains and severely degrades the performance of communication systems. We study the effect of oscillator phase noise in frequency-selective Massive MIMO systems with imperfect channel state information (CSI). In particular, we consider two distinct operation modes, namely when the phase noise processes at the $M$ BS antennas are identical (synchronous operation) and when they are independent (non-synchronous operation). We analyze a linear and low-complexity time-reversal maximum-ratio combining (TR-MRC) reception strategy. For both operation modes we derive a lower bound on the sum-capacity and we compare their performance. Based on the derived achievable sum-rates, we show that with the proposed receive processing an $O(\sqrt{M})$ array gain is achievable. Due to the phase noise drift the estimated effective channel becomes progressively outdated. Therefore, phase noise effectively limits the length of the interval used for data transmission and the number of scheduled users. The derived achievable rates provide insights into the optimum choice of the data interval length and the number of scheduled users.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (accepted

Receiver Algorithm based on Differential Signaling for SIMO Phase Noise Channels with Common and Separate Oscillator Configurations

In this paper, a receiver algorithm consisting of differential transmission and a two-stage detection for a single-input multiple-output (SIMO) phase-noise channels is studied. Specifically, the phases of the QAM modulated data symbols are manipulated before transmission in order to make them more immune to the random rotational effects of phase noise. At the receiver, a two-stage detector is implemented, which first detects the amplitude of the transmitted symbols from a nonlinear combination of the received signal amplitudes. Then in the second stage, the detector performs phase detection. The studied signaling method does not require transmission of any known symbols that act as pilots. Furthermore, no phase noise estimator (or a tracker) is needed at the receiver to compensate the effect of phase noise. This considerably reduces the complexity of the receiver structure. Moreover, it is observed that the studied algorithm can be used for the setups where a common local oscillator or separate independent oscillators drive the radio-frequency circuitries connected to each antenna. Due to the differential encoding/decoding of the phase, weighted averaging can be employed at a multi-antenna receiver, allowing for phase noise suppression to leverage the large number of antennas. Hence, we observe that the performance improves by increasing the number of antennas, especially in the separate oscillator case. Further increasing the number of receive antennas results in a performance error floor, which is a function of the quality of the oscillator at the transmitter.Comment: IEEE GLOBECOM 201

Calculation of the Performance of Communication Systems from Measured Oscillator Phase Noise

Oscillator phase noise (PN) is one of the major problems that affect the performance of communication systems. In this paper, a direct connection between oscillator measurements, in terms of measured single-side band PN spectrum, and the optimal communication system performance, in terms of the resulting error vector magnitude (EVM) due to PN, is mathematically derived and analyzed. First, a statistical model of the PN, considering the effect of white and colored noise sources, is derived. Then, we utilize this model to derive the modified Bayesian Cramer-Rao bound on PN estimation, and use it to find an EVM bound for the system performance. Based on our analysis, it is found that the influence from different noise regions strongly depends on the communication bandwidth, i.e., the symbol rate. For high symbol rate communication systems, cumulative PN that appears near carrier is of relatively low importance compared to the white PN far from carrier. Our results also show that 1/f^3 noise is more predictable compared to 1/f^2 noise and in a fair comparison it affects the performance less.Comment: Accepted in IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems-I: Regular Paper

AirSync: Enabling Distributed Multiuser MIMO with Full Spatial Multiplexing

The enormous success of advanced wireless devices is pushing the demand for higher wireless data rates. Denser spectrum reuse through the deployment of more access points per square mile has the potential to successfully meet the increasing demand for more bandwidth. In theory, the best approach to density increase is via distributed multiuser MIMO, where several access points are connected to a central server and operate as a large distributed multi-antenna access point, ensuring that all transmitted signal power serves the purpose of data transmission, rather than creating "interference." In practice, while enterprise networks offer a natural setup in which distributed MIMO might be possible, there are serious implementation difficulties, the primary one being the need to eliminate phase and timing offsets between the jointly coordinated access points. In this paper we propose AirSync, a novel scheme which provides not only time but also phase synchronization, thus enabling distributed MIMO with full spatial multiplexing gains. AirSync locks the phase of all access points using a common reference broadcasted over the air in conjunction with a Kalman filter which closely tracks the phase drift. We have implemented AirSync as a digital circuit in the FPGA of the WARP radio platform. Our experimental testbed, comprised of two access points and two clients, shows that AirSync is able to achieve phase synchronization within a few degrees, and allows the system to nearly achieve the theoretical optimal multiplexing gain. We also discuss MAC and higher layer aspects of a practical deployment. To the best of our knowledge, AirSync offers the first ever realization of the full multiuser MIMO gain, namely the ability to increase the number of wireless clients linearly with the number of jointly coordinated access points, without reducing the per client rate.Comment: Submitted to Transactions on Networkin

On the Capacity of the Wiener Phase-Noise Channel: Bounds and Capacity Achieving Distributions

In this paper, the capacity of the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, affected by time-varying Wiener phase noise is investigated. Tight upper and lower bounds on the capacity of this channel are developed. The upper bound is obtained by using the duality approach, and considering a specific distribution over the output of the channel. In order to lower-bound the capacity, first a family of capacity-achieving input distributions is found by solving a functional optimization of the channel mutual information. Then, lower bounds on the capacity are obtained by drawing samples from the proposed distributions through Monte-Carlo simulations. The proposed capacity-achieving input distributions are circularly symmetric, non-Gaussian, and the input amplitudes are correlated over time. The evaluated capacity bounds are tight for a wide range of signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) values, and thus they can be used to quantify the capacity. Specifically, the bounds follow the well-known AWGN capacity curve at low SNR, while at high SNR, they coincide with the high-SNR capacity result available in the literature for the phase-noise channel.Comment: IEEE Transactions on Communications, 201

Efficient Detectors for MIMO-OFDM Systems under Spatial Correlation Antenna Arrays

This work analyzes the performance of the implementable detectors for multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technique under specific and realistic operation system condi- tions, including antenna correlation and array configuration. Time-domain channel model has been used to evaluate the system performance under realistic communication channel and system scenarios, including different channel correlation, modulation order and antenna arrays configurations. A bunch of MIMO-OFDM detectors were analyzed for the purpose of achieve high performance combined with high capacity systems and manageable computational complexity. Numerical Monte-Carlo simulations (MCS) demonstrate the channel selectivity effect, while the impact of the number of antennas, adoption of linear against heuristic-based detection schemes, and the spatial correlation effect under linear and planar antenna arrays are analyzed in the MIMO-OFDM context.Comment: 26 pgs, 16 figures and 5 table