Pilot Decontamination Through Pilot Sequence Hopping in Massive MIMO Systems

This work concerns wireless cellular networks applying massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology. In such a system, the base station in a given cell is equipped with a very large number (hundreds or even thousands) of antennas and serves multiple users. Estimation of the channel from the base station to each user is performed at the base station using an uplink pilot sequence. Such a channel estimation procedure suffers from pilot contamination. Orthogonal pilot sequences are used in a given cell but, due to the shortage of orthogonal sequences, the same pilot sequences must be reused in neighboring cells, causing pilot contamination. The solution presented in this paper suppresses pilot contamination, without the need for coordination among cells. Pilot sequence hopping is performed at each transmission slot, which provides a randomization of the pilot contamination. Using a modified Kalman filter, it is shown that such randomized contamination can be significantly suppressed. Comparisons with conventional estimation methods show that the mean squared error can be lowered as much as an order of magnitude at low mobility

Uncoordinated pilot decontamination in massive MIMO systems

Abstract This work concerns wireless cellular networks applying time division duplexing (TDD) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology. Such systems suffer from pilot contamination during channel estimation, due to the shortage of orthogonal pilot sequences. This paper presents a solution based on pilot sequence hopping, which provides a randomization of the pilot contamination. It is shown that such randomized contamination can be significantly suppressed through appropriate filtering. The resulting channel estimation scheme requires no inter-cell coordination, which is a strong advantage for practical implementations. Comparisons with conventional estimation methods show that the MSE can be lowered as much as an order of magnitude at low mobility. Achievable uplink and downlink rates are increased by 42 and 46%, respectively, in a system with 128 antennas at the base station