Massive Multiple-input Multiple-output Networks Research Articles

Secure communication of intelligent reflecting surface-aided NOMA in massive MIMO networks

A Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) network, in which the base station (BS) incorporates massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology, is considered in this paper. This research study focuses on investigating physical layer security in this network when a jammer is present, leveraging intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS) technology. The IRS is an innovative approach strategically implemented to enhance communication quality by assisting distant users in establishing a reliable connection with the BS. Two key metrics in physical layer security are evaluated: the secrecy rate (SR) for pairs of NOMA users and the secrecy outage probability (SOP). Additionally, the impact of using a jammer is assessed by comparing the network’s performance with and without a jammer. The results indicate that by increasing in the antenna numbers, the rate of secrecy is improved, and the SOP is decreased. Moreover, as the transmit signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) increases, the SR is enhanced, but the SOP is degraded. However, the increase in the IRS element numbers results in a tendency for the SOP to rise. Furthermore, it is evident that incorporating a jammer improves the network’s performance.

Joint beamforming and power splitting design for MISO downlink communication with SWIPT: a comparison between cell-free massive MIMO and small-cell deployments

Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) has been advocated as a highly promising technology for enhancing the capabilities of 5G and 6G devices. However, the challenge of dealing with large propagation path loss poses a significant hurdle. To address this issue, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is employed to enhance the efficiency of SWIPT in cellular-based networks with multiple small cells, and especially increase the energy for cell-edge users. In addition, by leveraging a large set of spatially distributed base stations to collaboratively serve SWIPT-enabled user equipment, the cell-free massive MIMO has the potential to provide even better performance than the conventional small-cell systems. In this work, we extend the investigation to include the application of SWIPT technology with alternating current (AC) logic in the cell-free networks and the small-cell networks and propose joint beamforming and power splitting optimization frameworks to maximize the system sum-rate, subject to the constraints on harvested energy, AC logic energy supply, and total transmit power. The optimization problem is shown to be non-convex, posing a significant challenge. To address this challenge, we resort to a two-stage decomposition approach. Specifically, we first introduce quadratic transform-based fractional programming (FP) algorithms to iteratively solve the non-convex optimization problems in the first stage, achieving near-optimal solutions with low time complexities. To further reduce the complexities, we also incorporate conventional schemes such as zero forcing, maximum ratio transmission, and signal-to-leakage-and-noise ratio for the design of beamforming vectors. Second, to determine the optimal power splitting ratio within the framework, we develop a one-dimensional (1-D) search algorithm to tackle the single variable optimization problem reduced in the second stage. These algorithms are then evaluated in the context of cell-free MIMO and small-cell networks with numerical experiments. The results show that the FP-based algorithms can consistently outperform those utilizing the conventional beamforming schemes, and the solutions of this work can achieve up to fivefold improvement in the system sum-rate than the small-cell counterpart while providing different but comparable performance trends in energy harvesting (EH).

Learning to optimize power allocation in cell-free massive MIMO networks with hybrid green energy

In cell-free (CF) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) networks, many access points (APs) simultaneously serve user equipment (UEs) using the same time and frequency resources. The resource allocation algorithm in such networks needs to handle many calculations within a limited time frame to determine the power allocation from each AP to each UE. Further, the dispersion and large number of APs in CF massive MIMO networks pose challenges in terms of energy supply. As access to the power grid may be limited, renewable energies are often required as a supplement. However, due to the non-deterministic nature of the charging process, the resource allocation algorithm needs to consider the dynamic and uncertain amount of energy available at the APs. In this article, we propose a scalable machine learning algorithmbased on the emerging Learning to Optimize (L2O) paradigm that utilizes neural networks (NNs) for resource allocation in CF massive MIMO networks powered by electrical and renewable energies. Our objective is to minimize energy consumption from the power grid while satisfying the spectral efficiency (SE) constraints of the UEs. Additionally, our algorithm adopts a forward-looking approach and employs a green energy budgeting mechanism to prevent service interruption at green APs during energy shortages. Our algorithm design approach involves formulating the offline version of the problem as a second-order cone program (SOCP). Subsequently, we train an NN using the solutions obtained from solving the online variant of the SOCP. Our results indicated that our L2O-based algorithm can accurately mimic the solutions of the optimization problem with significantly reduced computational complexity.

Evaluation of User-Centric Cell-Free Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Networks Considering Realistic Channels and Frontend Nonlinear Distortion

Future 6G networks are expected to utilize Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (M-MIMO) and follow a user-centric cell-free (UCCF) architecture. In a UCCF M-MIMO network, the user can be potentially served by multiple surrounding Radio Units (RUs) and Distributed Units (DUs) controlled and coordinated by a single virtualized Centralized Unit (CU). Moreover, in an M-MIMO network, each transmit frontend is equipped with a Power Amplifier (PA), typically with nonlinear characteristics, that can have a significant impact on the throughput achieved by network users. This work evaluates a UCCF M-MIMO network within an advanced system-level simulator considering multicarrier transmission, using Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM), realistic signal-processing steps, e.g., per resource block scheduling, and a nonlinear radio frontend. Moreover, both idealistic independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) Rayleigh and 3D ray-tracing-based radio channels are evaluated. The results show that under the realistic radio channel, the novel user-centric network architecture can lead to an almost uniform distribution of user throughput and improve the rate of the users characterized by the worst radio conditions by over 3 times in comparison to a classical, network-centric design. At the same time, the nonlinear characteristics of the PA can cause significant degradation of the UCCF M-MIMO network’s performance when operating close to its saturation power.

ENERGY EFFICIENT OPERATION FOR NEXT GENERATION MASSIVE MIMO NETWORK

For the next generation of wireless networks, massive multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) is regarded as a potential technique. Base stations (BS) are provided with a relatively large number of antenna components in massive MIMO in order to increase spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE). Meanwhile, EE of BSs are becoming an increasingly important concern for communications operators in order to maintain profitability and reduce the overall negative impact on the environment and economic concerns for wireless network users. In this paper, an energy-aware, load-adaptive operation approach is proposed for massive MIMO for the next generation of wireless communication systems. Energy-aware, load-adaptive network operation has been identified as a promising method for improving the energy efficiency of telecommunication networks. Our research indicates that at optimal sumSE, fully load-adaptive massive MIMO may greatly increase network EE by up to 8.666%, 43.317%, and 69.367% for high, medium, and low load factors, respectively, when compared to traditional non-load-adaptive massive MIMO.

Energy Efficient Power Allocation in Massive MIMO Based on Parameterized Deep DQN

Machine learning offers advanced tools for efficient management of radio resources in modern wireless networks. In this study, we leverage a multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approach, specifically the Parameterized Deep Q-Network (DQN), to address the challenging problem of power allocation and user association in massive multiple-input multiple-output (M-MIMO) communication networks. Our approach tackles a multi-objective optimization problem aiming to maximize network utility while meeting stringent quality of service requirements in M-MIMO networks. To address the non-convex and nonlinear nature of this problem, we introduce a novel multi-agent DQN framework. This framework defines a large action space, state space, and reward functions, enabling us to learn a near-optimal policy. Simulation results demonstrate the superiority of our Parameterized Deep DQN (PD-DQN) approach when compared to traditional DQN and RL methods. Specifically, we show that our approach outperforms traditional DQN methods in terms of convergence speed and final performance. Additionally, our approach shows 72.2% and 108.5% improvement over DQN methods and the RL method, respectively, in handling large-scale multi-agent problems in M-MIMO networks.

Cluster Content Caching: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach to Improve Energy Efficiency in Cell-Free Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Networks.

With the explosive growth of micro-video applications, the transmission burden of fronthaul and backhaul links is increasing, and meanwhile, a lot of energy consumption is also generated. For reducing energy consumption and transmission delay burden, we propose a cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) system in which the cache on the access point (AP) is used to reduce the load on the link. In this paper, a total energy efficiency (EE) model of a cache-assisted CF-mMIMO system is established. When optimizing EE, forming the co-operation cluster is critical. Therefore, we propose an energy-efficient joint design of content caching, AP clustering, and low-resolution digital-to-analog converter (DAC) in a cache-assisted CF-mMIMO network based on deep reinforcement learning. This scheme can effectively cache content in APs and select the appropriate DAC resolution. Then, taking into account the channel state information and user equipment (UE)'s content request preference, a deep deterministic policy gradient algorithm is used to jointly optimize the cache strategy, AP clustering, and DAC resolution decisions. Simulation results show that the energy efficiency of the proposed scheme is 4% higher than that of other schemes without the resolution optimization and is much higher than that of the only AP clustering without the joint design of content caching and channel quality.

Performance Analysis of Cell-Free Massive MIMO Network With Large-Scale-Fading Decoding and Low-Resolution ADCs

Concentrating on cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) networks with low-resolution analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), we derive the theoretical achievable uplink spectral efficiency (SE) for the minimum mean-squared error (MMSE)-based large-scale fading decoding (LSFD). Moreover, we investigate the bit allocation (BA) among access points (APs) to maximize the asymptotic sum SE under the constraint of total ADC quantization bits. Simulation results confirm that our theoretical analysis is accurate and validate that the proposed BA technique is preferable to the random and fixed counterparts.

Distributed Learning for Uplink Cell-Free Massive MIMO Networks

Cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) can resolve the inter-cell interference issue in cellular networks through cooperative beamforming of the distributed access points (APs). This paper focuses on an uplink cell-free massive MIMO network and investigates novel methods to train the central processing unit (CPU), the APs, and the users in the network. To reduce the communication burden posed on the fronthaul, each AP applies receive beamforming to compress the vector signals into scalar ones before passing them to the CPU for centralized processing. By drawing analogies between an uplink cell-free network and a quasi-neural network and borrowing the idea of backpropagation algorithm, we propose a novel scheme named the distributed learning for uplink cell-free massive MIMO beamforming (DLCB), which can achieve the multi-AP cooperation without explicit estimation of their channel state information (CSI). The DLCB has low computational complexity and is applicable to various objective functions, such as the minimum mean squared error criterion and the maximum sum rate criterion. Extensive simulations verify that the proposed scheme achieves superior performance over the state-of-the-art methods.

Learning Decentralized Power Control in Cell-Free Massive MIMO Networks

This paper studies learning-based decentralized power control methods for cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems where a central processor (CP) controls access points (APs) through fronthaul coordination. To determine the transmission policy of distributed APs, it is essential to develop a network-wide collaborative optimization mechanism. To address this challenge, we design a cooperative learning (CL) framework which manages computation and coordination strategies of the CP and APs using dedicated deep neural network (DNN) modules. To build a versatile learning structure, the proposed CL is carefully designed such that its forward pass calculations are independent of the number of APs. To this end, we adopt a parameter reuse concept which installs an identical DNN module at all APs. Consequently, the proposed CL trained at a particular configuration can be readily applied to arbitrary AP populations. Numerical results validate the advantages of the proposed CL over conventional non-cooperative approaches.

Two-Timescale Design for Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface-Aided Massive MIMO Systems With Imperfect CSI

This paper investigates the two-timescale transmission scheme for reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, where the beamforming at the base station (BS) is adapted to the rapidly-changing instantaneous channel state information (CSI), while the nearly-passive beamforming at the RIS is adapted to the slowly-changing statistical CSI. Specifically, we first consider a system model with spatially independent Rician fading channels, which leads to tractable expressions and offers analytical insights on the power scaling laws and on the impact of various system parameters. Then, we analyze a more general system model with spatially correlated Rician fading channels and consider the impact of electromagnetic interference (EMI) caused by any uncontrollable sources present in the considered environment. For both case studies, we apply the linear minimum mean square error (LMMSE) estimator to estimate the aggregated channel from the users to the BS, utilize the low-complexity maximal ratio combining (MRC) detector, and derive a closed-form expression for a lower bound of the achievable rate. Besides, an accelerated gradient ascent-based algorithm is proposed for solving the minimum user rate maximization problem. Numerical results show that, in the considered setup, the spatially independent model without EMI is sufficiently accurate when the inter-distance of the RIS elements is sufficiently large and the EMI is mild. In the presence of spatial correlation, we show that an RIS can better tailor the wireless environment. Furthermore, it is shown that deploying an RIS in a massive MIMO network brings significant gains when the RIS is deployed close to the cell-edge users. On the other hand, the gains obtained by the users distributed over a large area are shown to be modest.

A Brief Review of Massive MIMO Technology for the Next Generation

Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) is an evolving technology based on the principle of spatial multiplexing winch consisting in using at the same time the same radio frequencies to send different signals. The several transmitting antennas from a base station can transmit different signals and several receiving antennas from a device can receive and divide them simultaneously. Due to the physically difficult of installing antennas close to each other, standard MIMO networks generally limit four antenna-side transmitters and receivers for data transmission while it could be more. The study aims to review the traditional MIMO different types as well as investigates the SNR between Single Input Single Output (SISO) and MIMO to ensure the best wireless connection functionality. In addition to that, a simple comparison to distinguish between SISO, SIMO, MISO, and MIMO in term of capacity and data rate to provide an indication for the quality of the wireless connection. The work's contribution is to illustrate technological benefits like MIMO, which boosts data speeds and increases the reliability of wireless networks. The outcome shows a SISO system would have a lower data rate than other systems because it only has one antenna at the transmitter and receiver, whereas a MISO system would typically have a greater Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) than a SISO or SIMO system because it uses several transmit antennas. MIMO, however, took advantage of all the positive characteristics and emerged as the best solution overall.

Estimating CSI for Future Generation MIMO Networks Using Deep Learning Techniques and its Applicability to Varied Environments

Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) approach consists of high potential to achieve high data rate and one of the most favourable method to exploit channel feedback efficiency. Thus, a deep learning-based CSI feedback mechanism is proposed in this article to ensure high channel estimation efficiency with minimum CSI feedback overhead. Along with that, auto-encoders are adopted to study low dimensional representation of varied data structures. Moreover, CSI matrices are compressed at encoder side and recovered CSI matrices are obtained at decoder side. Further, convolution layers are utilized to get high quality features and fully linked layer is utilized to compress dimensions in CSI feedback matrices. The CSI feedback efficiency is enhanced using 𝐃𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐍𝐞𝐭−𝐍𝐂𝐂 Architecture by exploiting magnitude correlation between downlink and uplink medium. Here, data of two varied environments such as indoor and outdoor cellular environment considering the Cost 2100 database is utilized and simulation is performed in cloud platform. An investigation is carried out to compare performance results of proposed DLAE model in terms of NMSE and correlation efficiency against varied traditional channel estimation approaches. Performance results shows higher channel estimation accuracy and spectral efficiency enhancement.

Resource Allocation and Impact Analysis of the System Parameters on Performance in Multi-Cell Massive MIMO Networks

Abstract This paper investigates the energy-efficient resource allocation algorithm for a massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) system, in which each base station adapts the number of antennas to the daily load profile. Our paper examines the effect of two user location distribution (ULD) models, on the energy-efficiency (EE) of load adaptive masive MIMO system. We propose a resource allocation strategy to adapt the number of antennas based on tracking variations of ULD and cell loading maximizing the EE. We also evaluate impact of cell size, available bandwidth and output power level of the BS on EE at different cell loading.

Scalable User Rate and Energy-Efficiency Optimization in Cell-Free Massive MIMO

This paper considers a cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output network (cfm-MIMO) with a massive number of access points (APs) distributed across an area to deliver information to multiple users. Based on only local channel state information, conjugate beamforming is used under both proper and improper Gaussian signalings. To accomplish the mission of cfm-MIMO in providing fair service to all users, the problem of power allocation to maximize the geometric mean (GM) of users’ rates (GM-rate) is considered. A new scalable algorithm, which iterates linear-complex closed-form expressions and thus is practical regardless of the scale of the network, is developed for its solution. The problem of quality-of-service (QoS) aware network energy-efficiency is also addressed via maximizing the ratio of the GM-rate and the total power consumption, which is also addressed by iterating linear-complex closed-form expressions. Intensive simulations are provided to demonstrate the ability of the GM-rate based optimization to achieve multiple targets such as a uniform QoS, a good sum rate, and a fair power allocation to the APs.

Optimization of Cell-Free Massive MIMO System

As an innovative implementation, Cell-Free Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) has appeared in typical Cellular Massive MIMO Networks. This protocol doesn’t recognize cells, as shown by its name, even though a significant number of APs operate on the same frequency/time resources. Connection from multiple distributed access points through joint signal processing is called Cell-Free Massive MIMO. The Cell-Free Massive MIMO System, a contrast between Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems and Distributed Massive MIMO, the prime focus in this thesis is on Cell-free Massive MIMO and, along with this discussion, on Cell-free Massive MIMO signal processing, Channel Estimation, Uplink Signal Detection, Cumulative Distribution, Spectral Efficiency & Ubiquitous Cell-Free Massive MIMO Model. Ubiquitous Cell-free Massive MIMO contributes to a Massive MIMO system, a distributed system that implements consistent user-centre distribution to solve that constraint of mobile phone interferences as well as to introduce macro-diversity. We investigated the Cell Radius at different locations in CDF with Spectral Efficiency [bits/s/hertz]. Cell-Free Massive MIMO is an evidence-based preventive of massive MIMOs with distributed high percentage APs that serve even lower margins. The cell-free model is not segregated into cells and any individual is concurrently represented by every Access point.

Antenna Selection Based on Matching Theory for Uplink Cell-Free Millimetre Wave Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output Systems

In this paper, we propose a hybrid beamforming architecture with constant phase shifters (CPSs) for uplink cell-free millimetre-wave (mm-Wave) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems based on exploiting antenna selection to reduce power consumption. However, current antenna selection techniques are applied for conventional massive MIMO, not cell-free massive MIMO systems. Therefore, the enormous computational complexity of these techniques to optimally select antennas for cell-free massive MIMO networks is caused by numerous randomly distributed access points (APs) in the service area and their large antennas. The architecture proposed in this work solves this issue by employing a low-complexity matching technique to obtain the optimal number of antennas, chosen based on channel magnitude and by switching off antennas that contribute more to interference power than to desired signal power for each radio frequency (RF) chain at each AP, instead of assuming all RF chains at each AP have the same number of selected antennas. Therefore, an assignment optimization problem based on a bipartite graph is formulated for cell-free mm-Wave massive MIMO system uplinks. Then, the Hungarian method is proposed to solve this problem due to its ability to solve this assignment problem in a polynomial time. Simulated results show that, despite several APs and antennas, the proposed matching approach is more energy-efficient and has lower computational complexity than state-of-the-art schemes.

Data Size-Aware Downlink Massive MIMO: A Session-Based Approach

This letter considers the development of transmission strategies for the downlink of massive multiple-input multiple-output networks, with the objective of minimizing the completion time of the transmission. Specifically, we introduce a session-based scheme that splits time into sessions and allocates different rates in different sessions for the different users. In each session, one user is selected to complete its transmission and will not join subsequent sessions, which results in successively lower levels of interference when moving from one session to the next. An algorithm is developed to assign users and allocate transmit power that minimizes the completion time. Numerical results show that our proposed session-based scheme significantly outperforms conventional non-session-based schemes.

Rate-Splitting Assisted Massive Machine-Type Communications in Cell-Free Massive MIMO

This letter focuses on integrating rate-splitting multiple-access (RSMA) with time-division-duplex Cell-free Massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) for massive machine-type communications. Due to the large number of devices, their sporadic access behaviour and limited coherence interval, we assume a random access strategy with all active devices utilizing the same pilot for uplink channel estimation. This gives rise to a highly pilot-contaminated scenario, which inevitably deteriorates channel estimates. Motivated by the robustness of RSMA towards imperfect channel state information, we propose a novel RSMA-assisted downlink transmission framework for cell-free massive MIMO. On the basis of the downlink achievable spectral efficiency of the common and private streams, we devise a heuristic common precoder design and propose a novel max-min power control method for the proposed RSMA-assisted scheme. Numerical results show that RSMA effectively mitigates the effect of pilot contamination in the downlink and achieves a significant performance gain over a conventional cell-free massive MIMO network.

Revenue-Maximizing Resource Allocation for Multitenant Cell-Free Massive MIMO Networks

Cell-free massive multiple-input--multiple-output (MIMO) (CF-mMIMO) is a distributed massive MIMO network architecture, which leads to a better ability to resist shadow fading than centralized massive MIMO. When network slicing is applied to CF-mMIMO networks in order to serve multiple tenants, the deployment flexibility of CF-mMIMO networks could be further improved. Nevertheless, how to effectively allocate resources in network slicing based CF-mMIMO networks is still a challenging problem to be tackled. In this article, we present a novel resource allocation scheme for network slicing based multi-tenant CF-mMIMO networks to maximize the infrastructure operator’s revenue while maintaining the quality of network services. Specifically, the resource allocation scheme is first formulated as an optimization problem, which is NP-hard and nonconvex. Then, the problem is decomposed into two subproblems. For the first subproblem, we propose a joint user clustering and power control coefficient allocation algorithm, which not only maintains fairness among users but also improves the access rate of CF-mMIMO networks. For the second subproblem, the interior-point method is adopted. In our article, extensive simulations are carried out to prove the effectiveness of the proposed resource allocation scheme. Our experimental results indicate that the proposed scheme leads to a lower outage probability and a higher infrastructure provider’s revenue than existing approaches.