Full-Duplex Massive Multiple-input Multiple-output Research Articles

A Unified Framework for Full-Duplex Massive MIMO Cellular Networks With Low Resolution Data Converters

In this work, we provide a unified framework for full-duplex (FD) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) cellular networks with low-resolution analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters (ADCs and DACs). An objective of this work is to derive an accurate model to account for a wide variety of network irregularities and imperfections, including loopback self-interference (SI) that arises in full-duplex systems and quantization error from low-resolution data converters. Our contributions for forward and reverse links include (1) deriving signal-to-quantization-plus-interference-plus-noise ratio (SQINR) under pilot contamination, linear minimum mean square error (LMMSE) channel estimation and channel hardening; (2) deriving closed-form and approximate analytical expressions of spectral efficiency; (3) deriving asymptotic results and power scaling laws with respect to the number of quantization bits, base station antennas, and users, as well as base station and user equipment power budgets; and (4) analyzing outage probability and spectral efficiency vs. cell shape, shadowing, noise, cellular interference, pilot contamination, pilot overhead, and frequency reuse. Cell shapes include hexagonal, square, and Poisson Point Process (PPP) tessellations. In simulation, we quantify spectral and energy efficiency as well as the impact of SI power, inter-user interference, and cell shape on outage probability. We carry out the analysis for sub-7 GHz long term evolution (LTE) bands and then extend the framework to support millimeter wave (mmWave) bands.

Performance Analysis of Self-Interference Cancellation in Full-Duplex Massive MIMO Systems: Subtraction Versus Spatial Suppression

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and full-duplex (FD) are promising candidates for achieving the spectral efficiency to meet the needs of 5G communications. One essential key to realizing practical FD massive MIMO systems is how to effectively mitigate the self-interference (SI). Conventionally, however, the performance comparison of different SI methods by reflecting the actual channel characteristics was insufficient in the literature. Accordingly, this paper presents a performance analysis of SI cancellation (SIC) methods in FD massive MIMO systems. Analytical and numerical results confirm that, in an imperfect channel-estimation case, the ergodic rates performance of the spatial suppression in the uplink outperforms those of the SI subtraction, due to the correlation between the precoder and the estimation error of the SI channel. In addition, we discuss which method performs better under different given system constraints such as uplink and downlink sum rates, the total transmit power, and the power scaling law.

Full-Duplex Massive Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output Architectures: Recent Advances, Applications, and Future Directions

The increasingly demanding objectives for next-generation wireless communications have spurred recent research activities on multiantenna transceiver hardware architectures and relevant intelligent communication schemes. Among them belong full-duplex (FD) multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) architectures, which offer the potential for simultaneous uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) operations in the entire frequency band. However, as the number of antenna elements increases, the interference signal leaking from the transmitter (Tx) of the FD radio to its receiver (Rx) becomes more severe. In this article, we present a unified FD massive MIMO architecture comprising analog and digital transmit and receive beamforming (BF) as well as analog and digital self-interference (SI) cancellation, which can be jointly optimized for various performance objectives and complexity requirements. The performance evaluation results for applications of the proposed architecture to fully digital and hybrid analog and digital-BF operations using recent algorithmic designs as well as simultaneous communication of data and control (SCDC) signals are presented. It is shown that the proposed architecture, for both small and large numbers of antennas, enables improved spectral-efficient FD communications with fewer analog-cancellation elements compared to various benchmark schemes. The article concludes with a list of open challenges and research directions for future FD massive MIMO communication systems and their promising applications.

Full-Duplex Cell-Free Massive MIMO With Low-Resolution ADCs

This paper studies the sum spectral/energy efficiency (SE/EE) of a full-duplex (FD) cell-free (CF) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system with low-resolution analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) at the access points (APs) and the downlink (DL) users. We characterize the joint impact of the residual self-interference, inter-AP interference, uplink (UL)-to-DL interference, pilot contamination and quantization noise (QN) by deriving closed-form solutions for the UL/DL SE. It is shown that the UL SE loss due to the QN can be compensated by increasing the receiving antenna arrays. By contrast, in the DL, increasing the transmit antennas is ineffective in compensating for the DL SE loss. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the operating region of the FD CF massive MIMO is reduced as the ADCs’ resolution declines. We investigate the EE/SE trade-offs.

Self-Interference Channel Training for Full-Duplex Massive MIMO Systems.

Full-duplex (FD) is a promising technology for increasing the spectral efficiency of next-generation wireless communication systems. A major technical challenge in enabling FD in a real network is to remove the self-interference (SI) caused by simultaneous transmission and reception at the transceiver, and the SI cancellation performance depends significantly on the estimation accuracy of the SI channel. In this study, we proposed a novel partial SI channel training method for minimizing the residual SI power for FD massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. Based on an SI channel training framework under a limited training overhead, using the proposed scheme, the BS estimates only a part of the SI channel vectors, while skipping the channel training for the other remaining SI channel vectors by using their last estimates. With this partial training framework, the proposed scheme finds the optimal partial SI channel training strategy for pilot allocation to minimize the expected residual SI power, considering the time-varying Rician fading channel model for the SI channel. Therefore, the proposed scheme can improve the sum-rate performance compared with other simple partial training schemes for FD massive MIMO systems under a limited training overhead. Numerical results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed scheme for FD massive MIMO systems compared with the full training scheme, as well as other partial training schemes.

Full-Duplex mmWave Massive MIMO Systems: A Joint Hybrid Precoding/Combining and Self-Interference Cancellation Design

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems have been considered as one of the primary candidates for the fifth generation (5G) and beyond 5G wireless communication networks to satisfy the ever-increasing capacity demands. Full-duplex technology can further enhance the advantages of mmWave massive MIMO systems. However, strong self-interference (SI) is the major limiting factor in full-duplex technology. Hence, this paper proposes a novel angular-based joint hybrid precoding/combining (AB-JHPC) technique for the full-duplex mmWave massive-MIMO systems. Our primary goals are listed as: (i) improving the self-interference cancellation (SIC), (ii) increasing the intended signal power, (iii) decreasing the channel estimation overhead, (iv) designing the massive MIMO systems with a low number of RF chains. First, the RF-stage of AB-JHPC is developed via slow time-varying angle-of-departure (AoD) and angle-of-arrival (AoA) information. A joint transmit/receive RF beamformer design is proposed for covering (excluding) the AoD/AoA support of intended (SI) channel. Second, the BB-stage of AB-JHPC is constructed via the reduced-size effective intended channel. After using the well-known singular value decomposition(SVD) approach at the BB-stage, we also propose a new semi-blind minimum mean square error (S-MMSE) technique to further suppress the residual SI power by using AoD/AoA parameters. The numerical results demonstrate that the SI signal is remarkably canceled via the proposed AB-JHPC technique. It is shown that AB-JHPC achieves 85.7 dB SIC and the total amount of SIC almost linearly increases via antenna isolation techniques. We observe that the proposed full-duplex mmWave massive MIMO systems double the achievable rate capacity compared to its half-duplex counterpart as the antenna array size increases and the transmit/receive antenna isolation improves.

Performance Analysis of Full-Duplex Massive MIMO Systems With Low-Resolution ADCs/DACs Over Rician Fading Channels

This paper analyzes the performance of multi-user full-duplex (FD) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with low resolution analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and digital-to-analog converters (DACs) under Rician fading channels. The maximum ratio combining and maximum ratio transmission are used at the base station (BS) for the uplink and downlink, respectively. By leveraging on the additive quantization noise model, tight closed-form approximations of the uplink and downlink achievable rates are obtained for both perfect and imperfect channel state information cases. The results show the impact of the Rician $K$ -factor, ADC/DAC resolution, loop interference, and inter-user interference of the systems. In addition, we adopt the power scaling law to show that to achieve a fixed level of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio, the transmit power of each user and the BS can be scaled down proportionally to the inverse of the BS antenna number. Moreover, we compare the performance of the FD mode and the half-duplex mode, and study the trade-off between the achievable rate and BS energy efficiency. Numerical results show that the use of low-resolution ADCs/DACs can significantly improve the BS energy efficiency with only small reduction in the achievable rate of the FD system.

Effect of Doppler Shift on the Performance of Multicell Full-Duplex Massive MIMO Networks

This paper studies the uplink and downlink achievable rates for large-scale multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) systems, assuming perfect and imperfect channel state information under the effect of Doppler shift. Different from the previous relevant work, we consider a multiuser system scenario, where a full-duplex mode worked in the multicell base stations, and maximum-ratio combining/maximum-ratio transmission is applied at the receiver end. Then, we derive the asymptotic uplink and downlink sum rate by utilizing the large number theorem and considering the performance comparison between the perfect and imperfect channel. In addition, the impact of the Doppler shift on the system performance (e.g., the uplink and downlink sum rates) is analyzed via the simulation results.

Full-Duplex Massive MIMO Multi-Pair Two-Way AF Relaying: Energy Efficiency Optimization

We consider two-way amplify-and-forward relaying, where multiple full-duplex user pairs exchange information via a shared full-duplex massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay. Most of the previous massive MIMO relaying works maximize the spectral efficiency (SE). By contrast, we maximize the non-convex energy efficiency (EE) metric by approximating it as a pseudo-concave problem, which is then solved using the classic Dinkelbach approach. We also maximize EE of the least energy-efficient user relying on the max–min approach. We also compare SE and EE of the proposed design with existing full-duplex systems and quantify the significant improvement achieved by the proposed algorithm. We also compare EE of the proposed full-duplex system to that of its half-duplex counterparts, and characterize the self-loop and inter-user interference regimes, for which the proposed full-duplex system outperforms the half-duplex ones.

Impact of Antenna Correlation on Full-Duplex Two-Way Massive MIMO Relaying Systems

This paper investigates the impact of antenna correlation on full duplex massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) two-way relaying systems. To be general, all nodes in the system are equipped with multiple antennas and arbitrary antenna correlation is considered. Deterministic equivalent of the achievable sum-rate is first given, which enables the derivation of the asymptotic sum-rate when the number of relay antennas is large. The impact of antenna correlation on the asymptotic sum-rate is then thoroughly analyzed. The results reveal that with a large number of relay antennas, the asymptotic sum-rate is independent of the antenna correlation at the relay’s transmitter side, however it is Schur-concave with respect to the eigenvalue vectors of the involved antenna correlation matrices at both the users’ transceiver sides and the relay’s receiver side. In other words, the antenna correlations at both the users’ transceiver sides and the relay’s receiver side have detrimental effects on the sum-rate. Moreover, the antenna correlation at the users is more significant to the asymptotic sum-rate than that at the relay. The analysis is general and can be easily reduced to consider half-duplex and/or one-way massive MIMO relaying systems. Numerical results are finally provided to validate the analysis. It is also shown that a larger number of user antennas may not always lead to a higher sum-rate, and thus proper selection of the number of user antennas is necessary to maximize the sum-rate.

Beam-domain hybrid time-switching and power-splitting SWIPT in full-duplex massive MIMO system

In this paper, we consider the beam-domain hybrid time-switching (TS) and power-splitting (PS) simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) protocol design in full-duplex (FD) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system, where the FD base station (BS) simultaneously serves a set of downlink half-duplex (HD) users (cellular users) and a set of fixed uplink HD users (fixed sensor nodes) which are uniformly distributed in its coverage area. In order to reduce the computational complexity, we investigate the beam-domain representation of massive MIMO channels based on the basis expansion model, and then the beam-domain SWIPT protocol which lies in intelligently scheduling the users and sensors based on the beam-domain distributions of their associated channels to mitigate SI and enhance transmission efficiency is designed for full-duplex massive MIMO system. The whole beam-domain hybrid TS and PS SWIPT protocol is divided into two phases based on the ideal of TS. The first phase is used for cellular users uplink training and sensor nodes energy harvesting as well as downlink training, wherein the cellular users transmit uplink pilots for uplink channel estimation at the BS, while the BS simultaneously transmits energy signals to the sensor nodes. Based on the idea of PS, the sensor nodes utilize the received energy signals for energy harvesting and downlink channel estimation. In the second phase, the BS forms the transmit beamformers for information transmission to the users as well as the receive beamformers for the sensors transmit their data to the BS simultaneously. By optimizing the TS ratio and transmit powers at the BS in two phases, the system achievable sum rate performance is maximized. Simulation results show the superiority of the proposed protocol on spectral efficiency compared with the existing massive MIMO SWIPT protocol.

Achievable Rates of Full-Duplex Massive MIMO Relay Systems Over Rician Fading Channels

We analytically study the achievable rates of full-duplex massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay systems over Rician fading channels. The decode-and-forward protocol is adopted at the relay station, where the channel state information (CSI) is assumed to be imperfect. We demonstrate that the system bottleneck, self-interference (SI), can be significantly canceled by zero-forcing (ZF) processing at the relay station, which is equipped with massive receive and transmit arrays. Because no active SI cancellation is deployed at the relay station, there is no need for SI channel estimation. We derive an approximate closed-form achievable rate expression for ZF processing with statistical CSI. When the number of antennas of the transmit and receive arrays at the relay station is sufficiently large, the transmit powers of each source and the relay station can be significantly scaled down proportionally to the number of antennas. Since Rayleigh fading is a special case of Rician fading, the results in this paper hold for Rayleigh fading channels. The theoretical analysis is verified by the numerical results.

Beam-Domain Full-Duplex Massive MIMO: Realizing Co-time Co-frequency Uplink and Downlink Transmission in the Cellular System

Co-time co-frequency uplink and downlink (CCUD) transmission was considered challenging in the cellular system due to the strong self-interference (SI) between the transmitter and receiver of base station (BS). In this paper, by investigating the beam-domain representation of channels based on the basis expansion model, we propose a beam-domain full-duplex (BDFD) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) scheme to make the CCUD transmission possible. The key idea of the BDFD scheme lies in intelligently scheduling the uplink and downlink user equipment (UE) based on the beam-domain distributions of their associated channels to mitigate SI and enhance transmission efficiency. We show that the BDFD scheme achieves significant savings in uplink/downlink training resource and achieves uplink and downlink sum capacities simultaneously as the number of BS antennas approaches infinity. The superiority of the BDFD scheme over the traditional time-division duplex (TDD)/frequency-division duplex (FDD) massive MIMO is evaluated through simulation for the macrocell environment. The results show that the spectral efficiency gain can even exceed 2 $\times$ in the specific scenarios, since the BDFD scheme utilizes the time-frequency resource more efficiently in both the training and data transmission phases.

Power Scaling of Full-Duplex Two-Way Massive MIMO Relay Systems With Correlated Antennas and MRC/MRT Processing

In this paper, the performance of full-duplex (FD) two-way massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay systems is analyzed. One popular linear relaying scheme, i.e., maximum ratio combining/maximum ratio transmission relaying, is particularly investigated. Different from prior analyses, multi-pair of MIMO users and antenna correlation at both the relay and the users are considered. Asymptotic sum-rate under a general case is first derived. Four special power scaling cases are then discussed and the corresponding asymptotic sum-rates are derived in simple forms with clear insights. The analytical results clearly quantify the impacts of self-loop interference, intra-group interference and antenna correlation, and discover the power scaling laws under various cases. It is found that the transmission powers at both the MIMO users and the relay can be scaled down inversely proportional to the number of antennas at the relay while maintaining a desirable sum-rate when the number of antennas at the relay grows large. The FD two-way massive MIMO relay system is finally compared with the half-duplex (HD) counterpart. It is revealed that under two special power scaling cases, the FD system can achieve double sum-rate when compared with the HD system. However, under the other two power scaling cases, self-loop interference and intra-group interference degrade the asymptotic sum-rate and the FD system may perform worse than the HD system. The maximum allowable self-loop interference for the FD system to outperform the HD system is given explicitly. In addition, the impact of antenna correlation at the users and the relay is analyzed. The results show that the antenna correlation at the users has complicate impact on the sum-rate, while the antenna correlation at the relay may not affect the sum-rate under certain power scaling cases.

On the energy/spectral efficiency of multi-user full-duplex massive MIMO systems with power control

In this paper, we consider a multi-user full-duplex (FD) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system. The FD base station (BS) is equipped with large-scale antenna arrays, while each FD user is equipped with two antennas (one for transmission and the other one for reception). We assume that the channel state information (CSI) is imperfect, and no instantaneous CSI of loop interference (LI) channel is obtained. On the basis of low-complexity uplink beamforming and downlink precoding techniques, i.e. maximum-ratio combining/maximum-ratio transmission (MRC/MRT) and zero-forcing reception/zero-forcing transmission (ZFR/ZFT), the asymptotic expressions of signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) of uplink and downlink are derived respectively when the number of antennas of the BS tends to infinity. Based on the asymptotic SINR expressions, we first analyse the spectral efficiency (SE) performance assuming that the generalized power scaling scenario is adopted. Through the theoretical derivation, it is shown that the detrimental impact of the LI can be eliminated by the very large number of antennas at the BS if the power scaling scenario is appropriately applied, as well as the interference caused by the imperfect channel estimation, the multi-user interference (MUI) and inter-user interference (IUI). Then, we propose power allocation (PA) scenarios to maximize the energy efficiency (EE) and the sum SE with the constraint of maximum powers at the BS and users. The simulation results verify the accuracy of the asymptotic method, we also validate the effectiveness of the EE and the sum SE maximization PA algorithms. We show that adopting the PA scheme to maximize the sum SE can make the multi-user FD massive MIMO system outperform the half-duplex (HD) counterpart regardless of the level of LI.

Transceiver Optimization for Full-Duplex Massive MIMO AF Relaying With Direct Link

This paper focuses on the end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) maximization for full-duplex massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) amplify-and-forward (AF) relay systems in the presence of direct link. First, we rigorously prove the asymptotic optimality of the maximum-ratio combining/maximum-ratio transmission (MRC/MRT) relaying strategy by taking into account the massive MIMO setup. Then, concerning the equivalent optimization problem with respect to source beamformer, we advocate a two-tier iterative algorithm relying on bi-section search, which guarantees a globally optimal solution. As a byproduct of this approach, we show that the optimal source beamformer has an interesting generalized channel matching structure associated with both source-relay and source-destination links. In addition to the optimal design, we devise a high SNR approximation-based suboptimal scheme, which admits a closed-form solution. Simulation results verify the advantage of our full-duplex relaying designs, and also demonstrate a negligible performance gap between the proposed optimal and suboptimal methods.