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In this paper, we analyze the spectral efficiency of multicell massive multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) systems with downlink training and a new pilot contamination precoding (PCP) scheme. First, we analyze the spectral efficiency of the beamforming training (BT) scheme with maximum-ratio transmission (MRT) precoding. Then, we derive an approximate closed-form expression of the spectral efficiency to find the optimal lengths of uplink and downlink pilots. Simulation results show that the achieved spectral efficiency can be improved due to channel estimation at the user side, but in comparison with a single-cell scenario, the spectral efficiency per cell in multicell scenario degrades because of pilot contamination. We focus on the practical case where the number of base station (BS) antennas is large but still finite and propose the BT and PCP (BT-PCP) transmission scheme to mitigate the pilot contamination with limited cooperation between BSs. We confirm the effectiveness of the proposed BT-PCP scheme with simulation, and we show that the proposed BT-PCP scheme achieves higher spectral efficiency than the conventional PCP method and that the performance gap from the perfect channel state information (CSI) scenario without pilot contamination is small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Massive multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) antenna system implies the use of a large number of base station (BS) antennas to serve a relatively small number of user terminals (UTs) for extraordinary spectral efficiency. However, its performance is limited by pilot contamination due to unavoidable reuse of pilot sequences from UTs in different cells. In this paper, we analyze the performance of massive MIMO zero-forcing (ZF) systems using the time-shifted pilot scheme, which was known to combat pilot contamination effectively using conjugate beamforming if there is a very large number of antennas. We derive expressions for achievable sum rates and the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratios (SINRs) of forward and reverse links if the number of BS antennas is finite. Then, the impact of system parameters, such as cell radius, transmit power, group number (a parameter related to the time-shifted pilot scheme), BS antenna number, etc., on the system performance are revealed. Our model embraces a series of previous works as special cases. Moreover, we compare the performance of conjugate and ZF precoders, from which a simple but effective large-scale fading-based UT scheduling scheme is proposed to enhance the system throughput. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In a massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system, the serious pilot contamination problem severely restricts its ability to boost the spectrum utilization. To tackle this problem, the conventional concept of softly reusing the spectrum resources for the inner regions of the neighboring cells has been extended to reuse the pilot resources so as to accommodate more users. Alternatively, properly selecting the users to reuse the pilots among the neighboring cells can alleviate the pilot contamination problem as well. In this paper, we delicately integrate these two concepts to properly reuse the pilots allocated to the outer regions of the cells. By well designing the hazard- and secure-edge regions to manage the pilot reuse, the increment of interference can be effectively suppressed, and, consequently, the more accommodated users can contribute to the remarkably higher sum data rates. Furthermore, via some adaptive power adjustment for the users within different regions, the user data rates can further be significantly enhanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the heterogeneous cellular network (HetNet) where the macrocell base stations (MBSs) are equipped with very large antenna arrays. Since such a combined massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) and HetNet system operates in the co-channel time-division duplex mode, to mitigate the pilot contamination effect to channel estimation, the number of users that can be served simultaneously is limited by the available pilot resources in the conventional designs. We propose a pilot reuse scheme for massive MIMO–HetNet to increase the user capacity. Specifically, location-aware channel estimation is employed at the MBSs to mitigate the severe pilot contamination introduced by pilot reuse, and we propose a novel pilot assignment algorithm to reduce the interference in HetNets. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed scheme can support more users and increase both the uplink and the downlink sum-rate capacity, in comparison to the conventional scheme, particularly when the antenna number at the MBSs is sufficiently large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The users at cell edge of a massive multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) system suffer from severe pilot contamination (PC), which leads to poor quality of service (QoS). To enhance the QoS for these edge users, soft pilot reuse (SPR) combined with multicell block diagonalization (MBD) precoding is proposed. Specifically, the users are divided into two groups according to their large-scale fading coefficients, which are referred to as the center users, who only suffer from modest PC, and the edge users, who suffer from severe PC. Based on this distinction, the SPR scheme is proposed for improving the QoS for the edge users, whereby a cell-center pilot group is reused for all cell-center users in all cells, whereas a cell-edge pilot group is applied for the edge users in the adjacent cells. By extending the classical block diagonalization precoding to a multicell scenario, the MBD precoding scheme projects the downlink transmit signal onto the null space of the subspace spanned by the intercell channels of the edge users in adjacent cells. Thus, the intercell interference contaminating the edge users' signals in the adjacent cells can be efficiently mitigated, and hence, the QoS of these edge users can be further enhanced. Our theoretical analysis and simulation results demonstrate that both the uplink and downlink rates of the edge users are significantly improved, albeit at the cost of the slightly decreased rate of center users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) crowded networks, the random access (RA) performance of strongest-user collision resolution (SUCRe) protocol can be improved by replacing the hard decision retransmission rule by a soft decision one, so that each user equipment (UE) decides to retransmit or not its pilot sequence with a suitable probability. We obtain this probability for each UE according to the probability of this UE being the strongest contender, while also proposing an analytical approximated probability expression for this event. Hence, the $k$ th UE is able to calculate the probability of itself being the strongest contender in a pilot collision, choosing to retransmit or not its RA pilot in the next step of the protocol according to this probability, without requiring any excessive complexity or additional overheads. Our numerical results demonstrate significant improvements in comparison to the original SUCRe protocol, while maintaining its favorable feature of being a decentralized and uncoordinated approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a location-aware pilot allocation algorithm for a massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) network with high-mobility users, where the wireless channels are subject to Rician fading. Pilot allocation in massive MIMO is a hard combinatorial problem and depends on the locations of users. As such, it is highly complex to achieve the optimal pilot allocation in real-time for a network with high-mobility users. Against this background, we propose a low-complexity pilot allocation algorithm, which exploits the behavior of line-of-sight (LOS) interference among the users and allocate the same pilot sequence to the users with small LOS interference. Our examination demonstrates that our proposed algorithm significantly outperforms the existing algorithms, even with localization errors. Specifically, for the system considered in this work, our proposed algorithm provides up to 37.26% improvement in sum spectral efficiency (SE) and improves the sum SE of the worst interference-affected users by up to 2.57 bits/sec/Hz, as compared to the existing algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]