Channel Estimation for Intelligent Reflecting Surface Assisted MIMO Systems: A Tensor Modeling Approach

Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is an emerging technology for future wireless communications including 5G and especially 6G. It consists of a large 2D array of (semi-)passive scattering elements that control the electromagnetic properties of radio-frequency waves so that the reflected signals add coherently at the intended receiver or destructively to reduce co-channel interference. The promised gains of IRS-assisted communications depend on the accuracy of the channel state information. In this paper, we address the receiver design for an IRS-assisted multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system via a tensor modeling approach aiming at the channel estimation problem using supervised (pilot-assisted) methods. Considering a structured time-domain pattern of pilots and IRS phase shifts, we present two channel estimation methods that rely on a parallel factor (PARAFAC) tensor modeling of the received signals. The first one has a closed-form solution based on a Khatri-Rao factorization of the cascaded MIMO channel, by solving rank-1 matrix approximation problems, while the second one is an iterative alternating estimation scheme. The common feature of both methods is the decoupling of the estimates of the involved MIMO channel matrices (base station-IRS and IRS-user terminal), which provides performance enhancements in comparison to competing methods that are based on unstructured LS estimates of the cascaded channel. Design recommendations for both methods that guide the choice of the system parameters are discussed. Numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed receivers, highlight the involved trade-offs, and corroborate their superior performance compared to competing LS-based solutions.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2001.0655

A Tensor-based Approach to Joint Channel Estimation / Data Detection in Flexible Multicarrier MIMO Systems

Filter bank-based multicarrier (FBMC) systems have attracted increasing attention recently in view of their many advantages over the classical cyclic prefix (CP)-based orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CP-OFDM) modulation. However, their more advanced structure (resulting in, for example, self interference) complicates signal processing tasks at the receiver, including synchronization, channel estimation and equalization. In a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) configuration, the multi-antenna interference has also to be taken into account. (Semi-) blind receivers, of increasing interest in (massive) MIMO systems, have been little studied so far for FBMC and mainly for the single-antenna case only. The design of such receivers for flexible MIMO FBMC systems, unifying a number of existing FBMC schemes, is considered in this paper through a tensor-based approach, which is shown to encompass existing joint channel estimation and data detection approaches as special cases, adding to their understanding and paving the way to further developments. Simulation-based results are included, for realistic transmission models, demonstrating the estimation and detection performance gains from the adoption of these receivers over their training only-based counterparts.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1609.0966