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Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication is a promising technology for increasing spectral efficiency in wireless networks. Two of the main challenges massive MIMO systems face are degraded channel estimation accuracy due to pilot contamination and increase in computational load and hardware complexity due to the massive number of antennas. In this paper, we focus on the problem of channel estimation in massive MIMO systems, while addressing these two challenges: We jointly design the pilot sequences to mitigate the effect of pilot contamination and propose an analog combiner which maps the high number of sensors to a low number of RF chains, thus reducing the computational and hardware cost. We consider a statistical model in which the channel covariance obeys a Kronecker structure, and treat two special cases, corresponding to fully- and partially-separable correlations. We prove that under these models, the analog combiner design can be performed independently of the pilot sequences. Given the resulting combiner, we derive a closed-form expression for the optimal pilot sequences in the fully-separable case and suggest a greedy sum of ratio traces maximization (GSRTM) method for designing sub-optimal pilots in the partially-separable scenario. We demonstrate via simulations that our pilot design framework achieves lower mean squared error than the common pilot allocation framework previously considered for pilot contamination mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different from the existing works, in this paper we investigate the pilot allocation in multi-cell massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, aiming to maximize the spectral efficiency (SE) subject to the constraint that the number of user equipments (UEs) satisfying the quality of service (QoS) is maximized. Since the considered bilevel optimization problem that is tough to handle, we resort to the greedy algorithms with low computational complexity. We propose a QoS constrained (QC) pilot allocation scheme, which sequentially allocates the pilot sequence having large interference power to the UE with small signal power so that the number of UEs satisfying QoS can be maximized and then the SE can also be maximized. Simulation results show that the propose QC scheme outperforms the conventional scheme and smart pilot allocation (SPA) scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel joint channel estimation and beamforming approach for multicell wideband massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems. With the proposed channel estimation and beamforming approach, we determine the number of cells $N_{c}$ that can utilize the same time and frequency resource while mitigating the effect of pilot contamination. The proposed approach exploits the multipath characteristics of wideband channels. Specifically, when the channel has a maximum of $L$ uncorrelated multipath taps (or correlated multipath taps satisfying modest criteria which is valid in most practical scenarios), it is shown that $N_{c}=L$ cells can estimate the channels of their user equipments (UEs) and perform beamforming while mitigating the effect of pilot contamination. The proposed approach can also be applied for general correlated multipath taps, and achieves good performance for this scenario as well. In a typical long term evolution (LTE) channel environment having delay spread $T_{d}=4.69\,\,\mu \text{s}$ and channel bandwidth $B=5$ MHz, we have found that $L=36$ cells can use this band. In practice, $T_{d}$ is constant for a particular environment and carrier frequency, and hence $L$ increases as the bandwidth increases. All the analytical expressions have been validated, and the superiority of the proposed design over the existing ones is demonstrated using extensive numerical simulations both for correlated and uncorrelated channels. The proposed channel estimation and beamforming design is linear and simple to implement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Massive multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) systems can suffer from coherent intercell interference due to the phenomenon of pilot contamination. This paper investigates a two-layer decoding method that mitigates both coherent and non-coherent interference in multi-cell Massive MIMO. To this end, each base station (BS) first estimates the channels to intra-cell users using either minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) or element-wise MMSE estimation based on uplink pilots. The estimates are used for local decoding on each BS followed by a second decoding layer where the BSs cooperate to mitigate inter-cell interference. An uplink achievable spectral efficiency (SE) expression is computed for arbitrary two-layer decoding schemes. A closed form expression is then obtained for correlated Rayleigh fading, maximum-ratio combining, and the proposed large-scale fading decoding (LSFD) in the second layer. We also formulate a sum SE maximization problem with both the data power and LSFD vectors as optimization variables. Since this is an NP-hard problem, we develop a low-complexity algorithm based on the weighted MMSE approach to obtain a local optimum. The numerical results show that both data power control and LSFD improve the sum SE performance over single-layer decoding multi-cell Massive MIMO systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]