On the Impact of Antenna Correlation and CSI Errors on the Pilot-to-Data Power Ratio

Abstract

In systems employing pilot-symbol aided channel estimation, the pilot-to-data power ratio is known to have a large impact on performance. Therefore, previous works proposed methods setting the pilot power such that either the weighted sum of the mean squared error (MSE) of the estimated data symbols is minimized or the overall spectral efficiency (SE) is maximized. However, previous works did not take into account the impact of correlated antennas and channel state information (CSI) errors on the optimal pilot power setting. In this paper, we consider the uplink of a multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU MIMO) system employing a receiver that minimizes the MSE of the received data symbols in the presence of CSI errors and derive closed-form expressions for the MSE and the achievable SE. These expressions take into account the impact of antenna correlation and CSI errors, and are a function of pilot power and the number of receive antennas. The analytical and numerical results can help set the pilot power, minimizing the MSE in multiple antenna systems.